wow. yeaye, this was– this was beautiful. i was looking for the origins of the outro at the end of ravyn lenae's "inside out", and i found your piece in my search. little did i know the beautiful writing that awaited me
i loved your perspectives on some of the songs in hypnos – one of my favorite albums ever. the look at lenae's grandma and sister fashioning their own planets and how they emphasize the centrality of imagination to the album – wow. i can't wait for the next time i listen to hypnos, which will be through that lens. and then after that, your angles on "where i'm from" and "deep in the world" as further rooted in the Black imagination
and that's to say nothing yet of your look at octavia butler and the visionary fiction that she offered us. i love what you wrote about her and her work. i haven't read it but i've been reading a lot of adrienne maree brown lately – i recently finished emergent strategy and now i'm on pleasure activism – and they mention octavia butler frequentlyyy. they love on her so much and talk so lovingly about the ways butler has shaped their own ideas around change and around dreaming ourselves into new worlds. octavia butler's work is very much on my list of books i'm excited to read in the future
thank you for writing this. i love reading about our radical imaginations and especially Black women's radical imaginations, and this was a wonderful piece tying together octavia, ravyn, solange, and the Black imagination
Zachariah, thank you so so much for this comment! I’m happy this resonated with you. I’m a HUGE fan of Ravyn and situating her in conversation with Octavia Butler and Solange just made me appreciate her artistry even more. Your kind words mean more than you know :)
u r so very welcome! oh, i love that. will definitely be listening to hypnos n when i get home thinking about what u said here. thank u for this gift <3
I love how you got into Solange's opening track from that album. I remember how many people were dismissive/confused by it (and other aspects of the album) when it first dropped. You used it as an excellent catapult into this piece's topic and it's even cooler to have learned about Octavia Butler's works. I love how black stories with fantasy elements of all kinds are becoming more and more common. I actually got the first issue of black created comic series this weekend at a literature festival I went to and definitely plan to buy the entire series!
WIGH is definitely one of those projects that you appreciate more and more as time goes on (at least that's the case for me), I think people were expecting something as easily accessible and direct as A Seat at the Table was. The comic series sounds really cool! And I totally agree that a lot more black stories are incorporating fantasy / sci-fi / surrealist elements, give it a few decades and I think people will look back at these years and say that we're in an Afro-Futurist/Afro-Surrealist renaissance
wow. yeaye, this was– this was beautiful. i was looking for the origins of the outro at the end of ravyn lenae's "inside out", and i found your piece in my search. little did i know the beautiful writing that awaited me
i loved your perspectives on some of the songs in hypnos – one of my favorite albums ever. the look at lenae's grandma and sister fashioning their own planets and how they emphasize the centrality of imagination to the album – wow. i can't wait for the next time i listen to hypnos, which will be through that lens. and then after that, your angles on "where i'm from" and "deep in the world" as further rooted in the Black imagination
and that's to say nothing yet of your look at octavia butler and the visionary fiction that she offered us. i love what you wrote about her and her work. i haven't read it but i've been reading a lot of adrienne maree brown lately – i recently finished emergent strategy and now i'm on pleasure activism – and they mention octavia butler frequentlyyy. they love on her so much and talk so lovingly about the ways butler has shaped their own ideas around change and around dreaming ourselves into new worlds. octavia butler's work is very much on my list of books i'm excited to read in the future
thank you for writing this. i love reading about our radical imaginations and especially Black women's radical imaginations, and this was a wonderful piece tying together octavia, ravyn, solange, and the Black imagination
Zachariah, thank you so so much for this comment! I’m happy this resonated with you. I’m a HUGE fan of Ravyn and situating her in conversation with Octavia Butler and Solange just made me appreciate her artistry even more. Your kind words mean more than you know :)
u r so very welcome! oh, i love that. will definitely be listening to hypnos n when i get home thinking about what u said here. thank u for this gift <3
I love how you got into Solange's opening track from that album. I remember how many people were dismissive/confused by it (and other aspects of the album) when it first dropped. You used it as an excellent catapult into this piece's topic and it's even cooler to have learned about Octavia Butler's works. I love how black stories with fantasy elements of all kinds are becoming more and more common. I actually got the first issue of black created comic series this weekend at a literature festival I went to and definitely plan to buy the entire series!
WIGH is definitely one of those projects that you appreciate more and more as time goes on (at least that's the case for me), I think people were expecting something as easily accessible and direct as A Seat at the Table was. The comic series sounds really cool! And I totally agree that a lot more black stories are incorporating fantasy / sci-fi / surrealist elements, give it a few decades and I think people will look back at these years and say that we're in an Afro-Futurist/Afro-Surrealist renaissance