on Jafa's wiki page at the very end of "Career" it says "He is currently working on a project that is a feature film that focuses on how black music has greatly influenced American culture." I cannot find any sources for this though smh

louisiana.dk/en/exhibition/arthur-jafa

Thx for sharing this, fire webdesign

BLKNWS audio broadcast from last year
nts.live/shows/guests/episodes/kahlil-joseph-presents-blknws-4th-may-2020

new Keem x K.dot vid gives me some Jafa vibes, reminds me of the TNEG website in particular rly cool stuff

🔥🔥🔥🔥

AJ is the first artist to guest-edit an issue of i-D magazine, interviews with Slauson Malone, Bradford Young and lots more

i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/7kb95z/arthur-jafa-guest-edited-the-new-issue-of-i-d

letterboxd.com/film/blknws-terms-and-conditions

Kahlil Joseph made BLKNWS a sci-fi feature film 👀 gonna try get tix for this at Berlinale, super intrigued

got tix for screening + talk, will report back 😤 @Soupvillain

score by Klein also wtf just seeing she made a whole feature herself as well ??
letterboxd.com/film/care-2021
edit: found a private yt upload on lb

blknews feature!! didn't even know that was happening

can't wait to hear your thoughts on the film

yo mb I forgot to follow up!! I've been meaning to write a review, tbh feel I fumbled I didn't go see the second screening of the film at Berlinale as well, it was dense af and hard to pin down.

there's a whole sci-fi plot and live-action acting stuff, a lot of that felt like a Random Acts of Flyness bit, tho to me maybe less strong? there's still a lot of essay type collages and I think those were my fav bits. there wasn't so much of split screen iirc, which tbh I found a bit sad cause it's used so amazingly in the BLKNWS tv version.

there was also a surprise Q&A w Kahlil at the screening and I went to another artist talk as well, I made a lot of notes which I would like to work into my review as well, but I'll just paste you the whole thing below bc there's some wild bits in there I'm hyped to share lol

pitched as 30min tv show
to netflix and amazon etc, everyone thought it's cool but didn't make an offer, couldn't see it working
after BLM 2020 got "hollywood budget" from A24
made a whole tv writers room
scholars, journalists, poets as screenwriters
600pg document

editing
working like a journalist w lots of editors
editor-in-chief of a newspaper
lots of different directors/writers of stories
guests like fred moten

film approached like an album
made to be rewatched
great scenes are like tracks of a film

good kid maad city short film
commissioned as concert visuals only
Kahlil always understood it he'd make it a film
9 months later finished editing, but TDE felt the gkmc run is already wrapped and shelved it
he just wanted it on youtube but naw
ended up installation for his brother's new museum (The Underground Museum in LA)
-> became 2 channel work for this space

"blackness isn't the exclusive domain of black people" - Fred moten
company as a work of art
BLKNWS as a BBC from a Black POV
founded "post-media company"
-> edited everything everywhere all at once (???)

black newsreel (news before film)
Sundance commission
made news reel for McQueen lovers rock

asked about spirituality
recs telepathy tapes podcast #autism

before even doing concept
write it down
what do I want the end result to feel like
then put it away

wild cat OST (flying lotus?)
reinterpretation of alice coltrane

music is fullest expression of black art
doesn't rly see it in literature or cinema

everything in cinema is about rhythm
lynch and kubrick all about rhythm

evolution of video in social media age, for an adhd generation

out on VOD, finally also seems to regularly screen in London still
linktr.ee/BLKNWSFILM

edit: video announcing this was removed for some reason lol but here's the first 5min "single" from the film (conceived as an album)

here's another 1min clip

and the official trailer

French girlies lowkey carrying the torch rn with DJ/organizer/writer/filmmaker Christelle Oyiri aka Crystallmess, who you might know for being the DJ Frank Ocean brought out during his Coachella set

her "Hyperfate" and especially now "Hauntology of an OG", which I got to see at an exhibition in Berlin end of last year and really blew me away.

Hyperfate now streaming on Criterion
Hauntology of an OG currently on view in Brooklyn (music by Crystallmess + Wraith9, teaser video here)

great recent convo she did w Arthur Jafa
interviewmagazine.com/art/arthur-jafa-on-strip-clubs-transhumanism-and-the-boundless-black-imagination
032 article on her Brooklyn exhibition rn
magazine.032c.com/magazine/christelle-oyiri-all-life-comes-from-rupture

then there's also Ethiopian-Belgian DJ/filmmaker renoiterrible aka Luna Mahoux aka renoiterrible documentary on La Chat called "The Other Queen of Memphis" (music by ssaliva and Embaci), streaming for free on youtube!

this one has moments of this very dreamy filmmaking mixed with more gritty documentary, aesthetically a bit more inconsistent but very worth a watch for sure