Kickoff: Black Punk Now

I wanna be your mosh pit girlfriend

Maybe let's get drunk
Maybe let's get
High
We can talk about whatever
Until you don't wanna
Die

I wanna be
I wanna be your mosh pit girlfriend

Moshpit Girlfriend, Arcadia Grey

Schedule

• Kick-off: April 5, 2024 , April 6, 2024¹

• Midway Check In: April 15, 2024

• Final Discussion: April 26, 2024 - 6PM PST

  • You can RSVP for the Digital Hang here 🤘🏽 - This means you get an email with the link to join on the day of and gives me a good idea of how many folks to expect!

  • If you can’t make it to the digital hang, you can always use the comment section to leave your thoughts, reviews, and reflections at any time.

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Punk Then, Punk Now

When I was 17 years-old, my mom packed us up and moved us to New York. I went to a high school where I stood out like a sore thumb for the way I dressed and for opting to wear big backpack that could fit my books. Mind you, at this time most of my clothes were from Pac Sun and Old Navy. My backpack was a JanSport corduroy with a dark and light blue hibiscus print. I was very much giving tropical, but my classmates would regularly ask me, “Are you like gothic or something? Are you a punk rocker?” And that, my friends, is the closest I’ve ever come to being a punk. 🤣

It’s been really interesting to read James Spooner’s interviews about Black Punk Now. I found a couple of interviews right here on Substack that I really enjoyed.

When talking about Black Punk Now and The High Desert with Zero Cred, Spooner talks about his daughter, her generation of music lovers and the shift in the scene. He talks about the amount of diversity now, but also how there is still a lot of work to be done:

Like, if you go to a Soul Glo show or a ZULU show, you have to feel like: Oh, I am in a Black moment. This is like going to a cookout. Those people are unabashedly Black folks talking about Black things, and if you're not Black and you're in the audience, you have to be comfortable with that. That's a huge shift. I don't think going to a Bad Brains show back in the day had the same energy. I wasn't around for those early Bad Brains shows, but when they would do something that was authentically Black, like playing reggae songs, I've heard from many people that they got a lot of boos and people walking out. They didn’t want to hear that shit. And that’s why Chris and I decided to make Black Punk Now, to document what’s happening now.

Back to the Beginning

Afro-punk comes up as a touchstone. What Afro-punk started as and what it is now. What is punk, what isn’t anymore, and what never was. Talking to Anti-Matter about selling out, punk and hip hop, the many subtleties surrounding making music but needing money too, Spooner says:

It’s definitely difficult in that the sellout question in punk is so wildly different from the sellout question in hip-hop—where a lot of these people were coming from the same economic backgrounds. Hip-hop was underground because it had to be; people weren’t taking it seriously. But its sound is palatable, it’s enjoyable in that way where the rhythm moves with your heart. Hardcore is disgusting [laughs]. You have to train yourself to understand what’s going on. So it’s not supposed to be for everybody. And that’s hard if you’re coming from a background where your parents aren’t paying for you to go to college or paying your rent.

and again with Zero Cred on how some folks might call him a sellout:

I made a book—I made a couple books—that are about punk, that are promoting punk rock ideals, ethics, and morals, but are not punk. Because it’s released through HarperCollins. HarperCollins is owned by Rupert Murdoch. There’s nothing less punk than him. [Laughs]…. Something that I learned along the way is that the underground and the mainstream are feeding off of one another, and there is a beauty in that for sure

Check the full interviews out! They cover the same territory but in different ways. I think it’ll lend a better understanding of what Spooner and Terry are trying to accomplish with this anthology.

An interview with James Spooner (Black Punk Now, The High Desert)

In Conversation: James Spooner

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All this talk about Afro-punk really piqued my interest! The documentary, I mean. If you too are curious, you can stream or buy the documentary on Spooner’s site. I got myself a copy of the DVD because why not.

Who’s coming over to watch it with me? 👀

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General

• Are you planning on reading along this month?

• What do you think of the cover, title, description?

• Have you read or heard anything by the editor or these authors before?

• What are you looking forward to the most from this collection?

Mosh Pit

• Do you listen to punk music? Do you have favorite bands?

• Have you ever been to a show or been in a mosh pit?

• Are you going to watch the Afro-punk documentary?

Don’t forget to like the post before you go ♥ I’d love to hear from you so share your thoughts in the comments, reply to this email or seek me out on social media.

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1. It was a big week at work! Cut me some slack.