Speaking of Afropunk, an event to look forward to is Friday night’s Primordial Punk Debutante Ball. This event is basically the launch of the Primordial Punk calendar, which features brown, tattooed punk rock girls, all tastefully presented. The brainchild of Luqman Brown (singer, songwriter and bandleader of Funkface and runs Buddha Bug Records), LaRonda Davis (who also presides over the Black Rock Coalition) and Jana (designer extraordinaire from K Boom Culture), here’s the statement taken from their MySpace page:
PRIMORDIAL PUNK represents what’s been missing from the cultural
dialogue of beauty.
It calls upon the talents of professional artists to challenge,
confront, rearrange, and revisualize the standard against which
AFRICAN-AMERICAN beauty is measured.
To that end, we are mobilized to create a new vehicle through which to
champion Black Identity and Pride.
Expressed through an ancestral language of tattoos, piercings, and hair
modifications,
PRIMORDIAL PUNK celebrates the fact that our beauty is original,
unapologetic and undeniable. It’s in our blood, of our culture. And
ours to liberate, proclaim and exalt…
Sweetie, Chewing Pics, Black Betty and Apollo Heights will be performing, so try to check out this free event that also includes a Luq’s other band Mackie Riverside backing the Brown Girls Burlesque.
Music is an integral part of this Black rock movement, but you can see that there’s so much more to it. It’s about defying convention not just when it comes to sounds, but in every area of our lives as African Americans, and a highly sensitive one is beauty and how we define what we value.
Additional links:
- Primordial Punk site
- Primordial Punk on MySpace
- Previous posts on Afropunk here
