Project 10: Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry

Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry is an album of street-level fire music exploring poet Tsitsi Ella JajiI’s concept of “stereomodernism,” or as she describes: “dubbing in stereo for solidarity.” Rhythmanalyst DeForrest Brown Jr.’s second release for Planet Mu as Speaker Music channels the modernist Black tradition of rhythm and soul music as an intellectual site and sound of generational trauma, bursting through the frames of Western music and thought.

This booklet of collected writings by Black theorists and poets provides further context featuring “Amerikkka’s Bay” written and spoken by Maia Sanaa, and remixed by Brown, Jr.

As Amiri Baraka saw it and Tsitsi Ella JajiI expanded, a Black music explores different perspectives and approaches to living in trauma within a prescribed future. The systemic displacement of Black communities in conversation with a linear consideration of Black music (from blues to rock to jazz to soul to funk to techno) shows a kind of communication emerging from a people learning See Less

Design by Ting Ding

Curated by DeForrest Brown, Jr.

Painting by Luz Angelica Fernandez