From White Brothers with No Soul to Black Counter Culture

30th Jan 2021 30th Jan 2021 18:00 19:30

Alexander G. Weheliye and DeForrest Brown, Jr. in Conversation

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  • De Grandi

    FR

    With four EPs under his belt, De Grandi is emerging as an enfant terrible of the Francophone club scene, catching attention beyond borders with a contrast of calm and chaotic sounds.

  • Alex Freiheit

    PL

    Alex Freiheit is a performer, poet, writer, actress, dancer, and the lead singer/screamer of the duo Siksa.

    • Cover image by A. Quaddim Haqq

    How have Europe and the USA negotiated with their respective colonial legacies? How do these differences manifest in music and culture? Departing from Alexander G. Weheliye’s analysis of Berlin techno in »White Brothers with No Soul,« and DeForrest Brown, Jr.’s work in the forthcoming book, Assembling a Black Counter Culture, the two thinkers appear in conversation to discuss techno and Blackness, and their development and entanglements in the various stages of post-war colonial globalisation.

    Weheliye is professor of African American Studies at Northwestern University. The author of Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity (2005), and Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human (2014), Weheliye researches Black studies, social technologies, and popular culture.

    Brown, Jr. is known for his acerbic criticism and salient output as Speaker Music. His forthcoming book with Primary Information sketches out a history of techno as entangled in industrial labour systems, tracing out parallels between Black electronic music and attempts to evade and subvert America’s structural racism, classism, and essentialism.