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Trailer: Get Out (2017), Written and Directed by Jordan Peele. | Video by Universal Pictures

GET OUT was a phenomenal piece of work, artist Kerry James Marshall said. Kenya Barris, the television writer and producer, is drawn to the neon work Double America 2 (2014) by Glenn Ligon. The simplicity of it is radical and confrontational, he said. For Mickalene Thomas, Jet magazine was a game changer: It shaped not only African-American people but also American culture through entertainment, through images, through music and fashion and storytelling.

Spanning visual art, film, television, literature, music, and the performing arts, a new feature published in the New York Times explores The African-American Art Shaping the 21st Century. The newspaper posits that black creatives have profoundly influenced the arts landscape in the 20 years since the turn of the new century. Projects from Jordan Peele, Ava DuVernay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Kara Walker, for example, have redefined genres and shifted American culture.

Its the first time since the 1970s that black art, history and political life have come together in such a broad, profound and diverse way, Wesley Morris wrote in a brief introduction to the project. Back then, the Black Arts Movement was active. Today, elements of Black Lives Matter are reflected in Beyoncs performances. Kendrick Lamar raises issues surrounding mass incarceration in his work. Moonlight brought beautiful cinematography to the big screen and, at the same time, confronted challenging issues surrounding black male sexuality.

Its the first time since the 1970s that black art, history and political life have come together in such a broad, profound and diverse way.

The Times invited 35 leading African American creators from a variety of disciplines to talk about the artist or share the work that has inspired them the most over the past 20 years. Photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier said Flint water activists. Ava DuVernay named Los Angeles Poet Laureate Robin Coste Lewis. Margo Jefferson said experimental black literature. For choreographer Kyle Abraham it was DAngelos Black Messiah album. Lena Waithe went with the TV show Atlanta. Kerry Washington said Beyoncs Lemonade album. John Legend named Ta-Nehisi Coates. Broadway star Audra McDonald selected Lizzo. Harry Belafonte chose the song Glory, a collaboration between Legend and Common. Many pointed to visual artists and a few of them also weighed in:

GLENN LIGON, Double America, 2012 (Neon and paint, 36 x 120 inches). | National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Agnes Gund

Writer/Producer Kenya Barris on Double America 2 by Glenn LigonIt turns America on itself, abstracting it. That really struck me because I find that abstract art is something black people dont really get to do. Were not given the opportunity to do black art that way. And in this piece, Glenn turns that notion on its head. For me, the simplicity of it is radical and confrontational.

Artist Kerry James Marshall on Jordan Peeles film Get OutThat was a phenomenal piece of work. It did everything that I thought a film like that was supposed to do because it seemed like real cinema. It wasnt a movie; it was cinema. When you hear him talk about the film, you can see that hes a student of cinema.

Soprano Julia Bullock on Kara WalkerThe first time I saw her work was at the Broad museum in Los Angeles. When I entered into the space there were these really dynamic silhouettes that seemed quite playful. But the closer I got, I realized what she was depicting. To say it made me happy is maybe a weird statement, but when I encounter any work of art that is talking about racism or anything thats going on with blackness, Im looking for something that is quite explicit. When dealing with this subject matter, trying to treat it politely or quote unquote appropriately, theres just no time and space for that.

Director/Writer Dee Rees on Wangechi MutuIt really jolted my thinking and reminded me of whats possible when you let your imagination fly. It was a wake-up call to being more fantastical. I remember seeing her exhibition in Brooklyn and just being completely mesmerized.

Poet Tracy K. Smith on Kahlil Josephs BLKNWSIts this video essay that uses two screens to depict imagesfrom the news, from pop culture footage, from YouTube, from cinema, from the sciencesthat speak to or just show central moments from black life. I think I sat there for about almost an hour, taking this stuff in and each element speaks to you. What I feel its doing is creating this almost large-scale sense of black humanity and what resilience it has, what forces working within and sometimes against it have looked like. I found it to be one of the most coherent and compelling examinations of blackness and of America that Ive ever seen.

Eric V. Copage, a former Times reporter and author of several books on African American culture, also contributed. Copage wrote an essay titled For Future Generations, Its Time to Reflect on Black Art. He explained the intent of the project and its lasting legacy.

Shifts in politics, performance and protest have all altered our culture in a way not seen in years, Copage wrote. The beauty of this exercise in reflection is not only to celebrate black cultural contributions to art but also record a pivotal time for our countryindeed the world. CT

FIND MORE Kahlil Joseph covered Surface magazines Art Issue in December 2019

BOOKSHELFGlenn Ligon: AMERICA, accompanied the artists 25-year survey. Kara Walker: Hyundai Commission documents Kara Walkers monumental exhibition in Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London. Kerry James Marshall: Mastry was published to coincide with Kerry James Marshalls 35-year survey. Also consider Kerry James Marshall: History of Painting and Kerry James Marshall (Phaidon Contemporary Artist Series). Also Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey accompanied the artists first major solo museum exhibition. Several recent volumes explore the work of Mickalene Thomas, including Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires, Mickalene Thomas: I Cant See You Without Me, and Muse: Mickalene Thomas: Photographs. In addition, Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe was published to coincide with her first solo museum exhibition.

KARA WALKER, Installation view of Africant, 1996 (cut paper on wall, 144 x 792 inches / 365.76 x 2011.68 cm). | Kara Walker, The Broad

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The New York Times Asked African American Creatives About the Black Art That Inspires Them. Here is What They Said - Culture Type

It could have been much worse. Ebola is highly contagious and has an average mortality rate of 50 per cent. (The average mortality rate for Covid-19 is about one per cent.) When the disease spread to Nigerias commercial capital Lagos, a densely populated city of 21million people often crowded in slums, public-health officials envisioned an urban apocalypse. Yet despite thousands of deaths, and the realistic potential of millions eventually contracting and dying of Ebola in West Africa, global markets hardly blinked.

Even this year, at the same time as Covid-19 has been spreading across the world, Nigeria, Africas most populous country, has been facing what is turning out to be the worlds largest outbreak of Lassa fever. This is a viral disease far deadlier than Covid-19, with an average mortality rate of 23 per cent. So far there have been 906 cases and 161 deaths spread across 27 of Nigerias 36 states. Few outside the country have noticed, just as few outside West Africa noticed the impact of Ebola.

Compare the response to the Ebola outbreak to the market meltdown we have been witnessing for weeks, even when Europes Coronavirus death toll was still in the low hundreds. Why the difference in reaction? It cannot be explained by the fact that the Ebola outbreak was mostly limited to a region. If a disease as deadly and contagious as Ebola had broken out in several Western European nations simultaneously, markets would still have plunged.

It raises the obvious question: why do African lives seem to matter less to the world? Some will say it is because of racism. But this is not about racism. The brutal reality is that this is about economic relevance. And, unfortunately, Africa is on the margins of the global economy.

Despite constituting 17 per cent of the worlds population, Africa accounts for just 2.5 per cent of global GDP. Its share of global manufacturing is just one per cent. Its share of global trade is two per cent. And just three per cent of foreign direct investment goes to the worlds second-most populous continent.

There are many historical reasons for why Africa came to be so far behind the rest of the world economically slavery, colonialism and so on. But historical explanations do not change current realities. And the current reality is that Africa is not considered significant in terms of the global economy today.

What happens in Africa has little economic consequence for the rest of the world. There is nothing the continent produces or consumes at the moment that cannot be easily offset elsewhere. This is why markets dont care what happens in Africa because it is economically irrelevant.

And this economic irrelevance in turn influences global media who follow market trends closely. Hence mass deaths and pandemics in Africa dont end up fazing or worrying the world the way they do when they happen in Europe, Asia or North America. Together, these continents account for 87 per cent of global GDP.

While racism is not the cause of Africas economic insignificance, that economic insignificance still has racial implications. Thats because, whether you like capitalism or not, we live in a capitalist world. And in a capitalist world, everything ultimately revolves around money. If I walk into a room with a billionaire, most people will be way more interested in what the billionaire has to say than in what I have to say. Because a billionaires actions can have real-life consequences for thousands of people. Mine cant. In the logic of capitalism, one billionaire is more relevant than 100 Remis. Annoying, yes, but thats the way it is.

As it works on the individual level, so too on the group level. White-majority nations remain the richest and most economically developed nations in the world, while black nations remain the poorest and least economically developed. The rest of the world is somewhere in between. It is no coincidence that the current racial hierarchy reflects the current economic hierarchy. What happens in white-majority nations and, increasingly, in Asian nations, is considered far more important than what happens in the worlds only majority-black continent. This has a psychological knock-on effect on perceptions of black people in general, including those of us in the diaspora. The continent we are associated with is considered pretty marginal in the larger scheme of things. By subconscious extension, so are we.

Imagine a world in which two out of the five largest economies were in Africa. A world in which when Africa sneezed, the rest of the globe caught a cold. A world in which markets breathlessly responded to developments in Nigeria or South Africas economy because that had global consequences. It would be a world in which Africa was unignorable. Because no one can ignore the relevant. Relevance today means economic relevance. That is why Africas focus this century must be on becoming rich by any means necessary. Anything else is a distraction.

Only then will black lives matter.

Read more here:
When a virus strikes Africa, we barely notice - Spiked

In hindsight, music has always been Donald Glovers true calling. Before the sitcoms, the Star Wars movie, the Saturday Night Live hosting gigs, and the well-worn gifs of the performer walking horrified into a burning room with a stack of pizza boxes, you could find him on YouTube as a member of Derrick Comedy. The groups greatest sketch, B-Boy Stance, saw Glover play an ageing hip-hop pioneer who had his arms surgically attached to his back, ensuring he was forever pulling the iconic pose it riffs on the distance between the New York acolytes who witnessed the birth of hip-hop and those who came to the music after it was commodified. Glovers understanding of American culture shines with diamond clarity; Atlanta, his comedy-drama that goes deep into the citys rap scene, is the evolution of those ideas.

Glovers early forays into rap were corny and forgettable. The Childish Gambino project felt like the side hustle of a talented kid eager to test every limit of his creativity that the moniker was taken from an online Wu-Tang Clan name generator seemed to reflect how low it fell on his list of priorities. In 2016, the funk record Awaken, My Love! was an artistic breakthrough. Then came 2017s vicious This Is America and a video that encapsulates the racial prejudice, police brutality and vicious gun lust freezing the soul of the self-proclaimed greatest country in the world. The clip became a pop cultural juggernaut, anointing Glover as spokesman for the Black Lives Matter generation.

3.15.20 is the glorious payoff of this musical evolution. Melding elements of industrial hip-hop, hard-edged funk and pulsing electronica, with occasional experimental breakdowns a la Pink Floyd, it is an ambitious album that can turn from hedonism to hope on a dime. And with its genre-hopping ethos, bold orchestral choices and pleasing tunefulness, it is the first truly boundary-pushing record of the 2020s, cementing its creator as a daring virtuoso. (The roll out of the record wasnt quite as well executed: songs temporarily began streaming on a continuous loop last Sunday via donaldgloverpresents.com and are once again leaving fans to ponder whether it was a leak or part of an elaborate release strategy.)

No song is quite as blunt as the societal sledgehammer that was This Is America because they dont have to be Glovers sharp pen and outlandish concepts see him smartly examine topics such as freedom in the digital age, the nature of reality and the malignancy in the soul of his home nation.

Take Algorhythm, which warns of the erosion of personal liberties as the algorithms that serve our information alter our minds. The corrosive psychological effect of phones has become catnip for songwriters in recent years but Glover brings his own perspective, using vocal effects to slide into the role of artificial intelligence while dropping biblical references. Elsewhere, he buries his voice so deep in effects at moments that it is near-impossible to make out his words see 32.22, a bruising rap song that shares DNA with Kanye Wests Black Skinhead. The effect alludes to the disappearance of his soul into a digital vortex, inviting listeners to determine what is and is not real.

The most direct probing comes on the Ariana Grande-assisted Time, as Glover sounding half flower child, half crystal gazer questions whether the world is exactly what it seems. With a melody reminiscent of forgotten single Cry, theres even a touch of Michael Jackson to the sweeping anthem. Its not difficult to picture MJ, arms stretched out in a Christ-like stance, singing lines such as: Seven billion people trying to free themselves / Said a billion prayers trying to save myself. Not that you ever would have caught Jackson over these psych-tinted guitar strums and eccentric, retro-futuristic drum machines.

The gentle funk of 47.48 evokes memories of Stevie Wonder as Glover explores the devastating effect violence has on childhood innocence. There are moments of levity, though. On the Prince-esque lover-man jam 24.19, the meaning of a relationship is captured through minutiae as Glover smiles at his sweethearts appreciation of fairytales, the way they wear their hair and the chicken dinners the couple once shared. More passion comes on 12.38, throwback funk featuring horny one-liners such as Hit the uchi-chuchi till its slanted; the hazy pop of Feels Like Summer will line up well on barbecue playlists.

These are lighter moments in a grander work that instantly feels part of the zeitgeist. Its especially appropriate, then, that 3.15.20 has dropped into the feeds of people social distancing. The disruption caused by the coronavirus forces us to question how strong the foundations of civilisation really are. Glover never could have seen the pandemic coming when he was recording the album, yet at a time when much of what we thought was strong is weak what we thought was eternal is potentially fleeting 3.15.20 captures the insecurity of lived reality and the humanity that truly defines our existence.

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Childish Gambino: 3.15.20 review at the peak of the zeitgeist - The Guardian

As the great-great-granddaughter of hair care pioneer Madam C.J. Walker, ALelia Bundles proudly carries the torch of her familys heritage onward.

Bundles book, On Her Own Ground: TheLifeand Times of Madam C.J. Walker,laid the groundwork for Netflixs latest mini-series,Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker.

READ MORE: Self Made stars Blair Underwood, Bill Bellamy discuss Madam C.J. Walker and series

The series stars actress Octavia Spencer as one of the most revered entrepreneurs in Black history alongside Blair Underwood as her husband, Mr. C.J. Walker.

With a birthright rooted in hair, Bundles reflected on how Madame C.J. Walkers legacy influenced how she viewed her own hair growing up.

My mother was really very good about making this a nurturing process, the author told theGrio.

So fortunately, I never got some of those negative messages that I know a lot of people got. And my mother always acted as if it was the joy to do my hair, even though Im sure it wasnt.

READ MORE: Coronavirus is affecting Black hair care businesses, vendors say

Though her family always showered her mane with admiration, Bundles faced her own obstacles when it came to loving her own curls. But with patience, she began to accept her hair for all of its glory and limitations.

I have lived almost seven decades. So Ive had my hair journey where I wasnt comfortable with my hair,Bundles said of her personal hair journey.

It takes a long time, I think, to get to the place where you realize you may love the hairstyle that somebody else has. But my hair is not going to really do that, right? So what is it about my hair that I can appreciate that I can learn to love?

Perceptions of Black hair morphed drastically over the last generation, but unfortunately there are some elements of Black life that have stayed the same. The four-part series is set in the early 1900s, but we can find very relevant modern themes present throughout.

Whether its voting rights, you know, whether its women, whether it is our ability to start businesses, to have investments, with the racism, the lynching, Black Lives Matter 1.0, those same themes of race and gender and politics still resonate, Bundles explained to theGrio.

Some parts of it are heartbreaking to me. But it means that we realize you cant just give up the fight. You have to keep pushing.

Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker premieres on Netflix Friday, March 20.

Read more from the original source:
Madam CJ Walker's great-great-granddaughter on carrying family torch - TheGrio

To the editor:

We are a group of women and men who after Trumps election decided to take President Obamas advice and do something to make a difference, and so became the beginning of a dream. We knew living right dab in the middle of Trump country was going to be a constant battle and so became our battle cry, We will resist. We have since written letters to the editor to the opinion page of the newspaper every week since inauguration in 2017.

We have marched at gay pride parades, and attended womens rights and Black Lives Matters events. We have had community programs defending the left agenda, with facts. We hosted the first opioid round table in Jefferson County, where we had members of state and local government, drug counselors and first responders who helped shine a light on what we as a community could do to help those suffering from addiction. We have done voter registration drives all around the county since 2017.

Out of our own pocket we have contributed ham and cheese trays to all local school districts on teachers day; care packages to the immigrants and the domestic violence shelter; memorial wreaths to our Vietnam veterans; adopted a park for respect of our environment; sponsored many meet-the-candidate programs; and hosted two picnics the first honored all veterans and the second honored the many women from all over Ohio who proudly served in all branches of the military. We helped with an appreciation dinner for Sheriff Fred Abdalla and many more events too numerous to list and planning new events all the time.

At first we were out numbered and criticized, but as the months and years passed, letters to the newspaper have grown, many from people we dont know, our membership has grown every month and together the original group stands strong. In closing the Jefferson County Progressive Democratic Coalition from the communities of Steubenville, Mingo Junction, Bergholz, Toronto, Rayland and Wintersville proudly shout, we are here and voting blue no matter who in November.

Denise Galownia

Mingo Junction

To the editor:On March 15, Gov. Mike DeWine shut down the restaurants and bars in Ohio what? Doesnt Mike ...

To the editor:Donald Trump did not cause the coronavirus.OK, now thats out of the way, let me tell you ...

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To the editor:Imagine the bitter disappointment Mike Bloomberg must now be experiencing after his dismal ...

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To the editor:As a result, reportedly, of inappropriate sexual comments he had made in the work place ...

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Coalition continues to gather support | News, Sports, Jobs - The Steubenville Herald-Star