Black, Listed

‘Demand me nothing; what you know, you know.’

In his 1988 book Afrocentricity, Molefi Kete Asante

It’s a jaunty, optimistic little song that, in the words of Roots & Culture author Eddie Chambers,

At the other end of the spectrum I had Public Enemy instructing me to Fight the Power! while the swaggering N.W.A., those theatrical niggas with attitude, told me to Fuck the

A conscious streak glowed bright in black pop culture, filtering through to black kids like me all over the world. Before hip-hop went gangster it had become decidedly politicised, historically aware, sometimes Afrocentric, frequently bohemian, experimental and cerebral. I watched my sisters adopt the affectations of Queen Latifah, Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill. I listened to the psychedelia of OutKast and De La Soul and jazzy sample work of A Tribe Called Quest, pulling me into a black American consciousness.

Echoes of Malcolm X in the mission of Killmonger are immediate, the drug-dealing pimp who rejected his ‘white slavemaster’ surname before becoming a Muslim minister and black activist

I can do no better than reference the American comedian Chris Rock (who will turn up again in the ‘Nigger’ section), who once said that being black in America is like having an uncle who paid your way through college – but molested you.

I can see the turmoil that rages within the African-American psyche, somewhere between ‘we love this country’ and ‘fuck this place’.

became a statement of intent, a reminder that black people can prosper against the odds; a manifesto for the black American dream that we can all believe in.

Black History Month is often criticised for being a tokenistic nod at black heritage that