Afro-punk

Afro-punk (sometimes spelled Afro-Punk, Afropunk or AfroPunk) refers to the participation of African Americans and other black people in the punk and alternative music cultures. Afro-punks make up a minority in the North American punk scene. However, they represent a majority in the punk culture in predominantly black regions of the world that have burgeoning punk communities, such as in parts of Africa. There are many punk rock bands with black members, and several with lineups that are all black.

Notable bands that can be linked to the Afro-punk community include: Death, Pure Hell, Bad Brains, Suicidal Tendencies, Dead Kennedys, Fishbone, Wesley Willis Fiasco, Suffrajett, The Templars, and Rough Francis. Afro-punk has become a movement, comparable to the early hip hop movement of the 80's.

The Afropunk Music Festival was founded in 2002 and occurs in Brooklyn.

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Afro-Punk (film)

Afro-Punk: The Rock is a 66-minute documentary film directed by James Spooner, exploring race identity within the punk scene across America and abroad. The film focuses on the lives of four people dedicated to the punk rock lifestyle, interspersed with interviews from scores of black punk rockers from all over the United States. The interviews cover issues of loneliness, exile, interracial dating, black power, and the dual lives led by people of color in communities that are primarily white.

Afro-Punk features performances by Bad Brains, Tamar-kali, Cipher, and Ten Grand. It also contains exclusive interviews by members of Fishbone, 24-7 Spyz, Dead Kennedys, Candiria, Orange 9mm, The Veldt and TV on the Radio, among others. In 2003 the documentary was featured at the American Black Film Festival in South Beach and the Pan African Film & Arts Festival, and won an Official Selection at the Toronto International Film Festival, an Audience Award at the Black Harvest International Film and Video Festival in Chicago, an award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking at the Roxbury Film Festival in Boston, and an award for Best Documentary at the International Jamerican Film and Music Festival in Jamaica.

Afro

Afro, sometimes shortened to 'fro and also known as a "natural", is a hairstyle worn naturally by people with lengthy kinky hair texture or specifically styled in such a fashion by individuals with naturally curly or straight hair. The hairstyle is created by combing the hair away from the scalp, allowing the hair to extend out from the head in a large, rounded shape, much like a cloud or ball.

In persons with naturally curly or straight hair, the hairstyle is typically created with the help of creams, gels or other solidifying liquids to hold the hair in place. Particularly popular in the African-American community of the late 1960s, the hairstyle is often shaped and maintained with the assistance of a wide-toothed comb colloquially known as an afro pick.

Etymology

Afro is derived from the term "Afro-American". The hairstyle is also referred to by some as the "natural"—particularly the shorter, less elaborate versions of the Afro—since in most cases the hair is left untreated by relaxers or straightening chemicals and is instead allowed to express its natural curl or kinkiness.

Afro (disambiguation)

An afro is a hairstyle.

Afro, Afros, or AFRO may also refer to:

Africa

People

Art, entertainment, and media

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Afro (genre)

Afro is a genre of Cuban popular music with African themes which gained prominence during the afrocubanismo movement in the early 20th century. It originated in the late 19th century Cuban blackface theatre, where some elements from Afro-Cuban music traditions such as Santería and Palo were incorporated into a secular context. As a result, black themes were occasionally portrayed in a stereotypical and derogatory manner. Nonetheless, many afros accurately depicted the working-class life of black communities in Cuba.

Afros are sung in a creolized form of Spanish, often similar to bozal. In the 1940s and 1950s, the genre reached its peak of popularity often mixig with son cubano giving rise to the hybrid style known as afro-son (or son-afro). Compositions not based on the son structure were often labelled as canción afro (afro-song) or canción de cuna afro (afro-lullaby); the latter became a popular form, especially due to the popularity of Ernesto Grenet's "Drume negrita". Among the most notable singers of afro were Rita Montaner, Bola de Nieve, Desi Arnaz and Merceditas Valdés.

Punk

Punk or punks may refer to:

See also

Cyberpunk derivatives

A number of cyberpunk derivatives have become recognized as distinct subgenres in speculative fiction. These derivatives, though they do not share cyberpunk's computers-focused setting, may display other qualities drawn from or analogous to cyberpunk: a world built on one particular technology that is extrapolated to a highly sophisticated level (this may even be a fantastical or anachronistic technology, akin to retro-futurism), a gritty transreal urban style, or a particular approach to social themes.

The most successful of these subgenres, Steampunk, has been defined as a "kind of technological fantasy", and others in this category sometimes also incorporate aspects of science fantasy and historical fantasy. Scholars have written of these subgenres' stylistic place in postmodern literature, and also their ambiguous interaction with the historical perspective of postcolonialism.

American author Bruce Bethke coined the term "cyberpunk" in his 1980 short story of the same name, proposing it as a label for a new generation of punk teenagers inspired by the perceptions inherent to the Information Age. The term was quickly appropriated as a label to be applied to the works of William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, John Shirley, Rudy Rucker, Michael Swanwick, Pat Cadigan, Lewis Shiner, Richard Kadrey, and others. Science fiction author Lawrence Person, in defining postcyberpunk, summarized the characteristics of cyberpunk thus: