Identity of Afro-punk

Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music celebrates the legacy of African-Americans in rock ‘n’ roll music

 The term “afro-punk” seems to have within it an odd juxtaposition of terms.

Though African-Americans were the progenitors of rock ‘n’ roll, today a cultural distance from guitar-oriented music has led to the necessity of ascribing a racial title to the supposedly “white” music that some black Americans are creating today.

“It was only through hip-hop that people have forgotten that we used to play guitars,” says poet, musician and all-around artist Saul Williams, whose last album, “The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust” was produced by Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor. “We have to throw that term in front of it to remind others and ourselves that that music also belongs to us.”

Just days before the start of this year’s fifth annual Afro-Punk Festival, one of the event’s organizers, Matthew Morgan, is stressing about performance permits and preemptive noise complaints from neighbors of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where most of the festival is taking place. Unlike Williams, Morgan, once the manager to Santi White before she became Santigold, believes that the rise of afro-punk isn’t as much about racial identity as it is about boundaries fading away.

“Our kids now don’t necessarily have that stigma. They love what the energy is. They love the angst. What hip-hop did, rock music now does,” he says.

With a series of screenings, concerts and even the temporary opening of a BMX and skate park, this year’s Afro-Punk Festival expands on the original concept that Morgan presented with his 2005 documentary film, “Afro-Punk,” in which he interviewed young black punk fans.

“It’s a response to us feeling that we can finally step out of the box,” says Williams. “The biggest thing we can do at this point is to say, ‘Well, then let me create that box. Instead of you branding me, let me brand myself.’”