The Afrofuturist Evolution: Creative Paths to Self-Discovery

The spaces revealed through the practice of time manipulation in Black cultures lend themselves to storytelling, a time-hopping process that integrates memory and community.

Drawing on disparate philosophies and science behind electronic beat-making, lyricism, dance, memory, myth, and cosmology in the African and African Disaporic traditions, this book seeks to demonstrate relationships between rhythm, space, and ways of being as an articulation of futures and alternate realities made present.

Infused with author and Afrofuturist educator Ytasha Womack's own practice and contemplations, this book, rich in anecdotes, will interrogate Afrofuturism as an experience that unfolds through combinations of being a maker and theorist. Readers will take a creative journey that allows them to bring Afrofuturist practices into their own lives. The goal is to expand imagination, rootedness, and possibility.

From Senegalese poet, political theorist, and politician Leopold Sedar Senghor's ideas on the plastic arts and Negritude to writer Malidoma Patrese Some's articulation of water symbolism in Burkina Faso; from tap dance exercises to composer, DJ, and recording artist King Britt's Blacktronica, The Afrofuturist Evolution aims to demonstrate Afrofuturism as embodied theory in practice.

This book--in simple, straightforward, but powerful ways--invites readers to bring these practices into their own lives.

Author: Ytasha L. Womack
Publisher: Lawrence Hill Books
Published: 03/25/2025
Pages: 340
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780897334556

About the Author
Ytasha L. Womack is a filmmaker and futurist, and the author of Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, and Post Black: How a New Generation Is Redefining African American Identity, and a contributor to the Smithsonian exhibit companion title Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures. Womack has taught and lectured on Afrofuturism to audiences ranging from Carnegie Hall and the Smithsonian, to Afropunk in Brooklyn and the Sonic Acts Festival in Amsterdam, from Saint Etienne School of Architecture in France to MIT Media Lab's "Beyond the Cradle" in Boston. She is the creator of the Rayla 2212 sci-fi multimedia series, the director of the award-winning film The Engagement, the producer and writer of Love Shorts, and the coeditor of Beats Rhymes & Life: What We Love and Hate About Hip Hop. She lives in Chicago.