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The cosmic submarine - Yugen Blakrok's sonar echoes

Vögele, Pius Jonas. (2020) The cosmic submarine - Yugen Blakrok's sonar echoes. Critical Studies in Media Communication , 37 (4). pp. 350-363.

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Official URL: https://edoc.unibas.ch/82817/

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Abstract

This article explores South African hip-hop artist, Yugen Blakrok. She received considerable attention with her appearance on Kendrick Lamar's soundtrack for the blockbuster feature Black Panther (2018), which brought Afrofuturism into the international mainstream. While Afrofuturism is a concept mainly developed in the African diaspora, as for instance with Sun Ra's MythScience , Yugen Blakrok's South African perspective yields a distinct approach to the aesthetic levels of the lyrical, sonic and visual. The article primarily focuses on Blakrok's lyrics, as they afford the most thorough basis for an analysis of the features that, despite Afrofuturism's inherent interplanetary consciousness, distinguish Blakrok's unique take on Afrofuturism, which will be exemplified with a close reading of the song "Opps" from the Black Panther soundtrack. Even though Yugen Blakrok creates a highly eclectic, holistic approach, "Opps" reveals its contextual embeddedness in the Afrofuturist discourse with its echoings of the Drexciyan myth. The article further delves into the otherworld of the artist's most recent album Anima Mysterium to highlight her aquatic tropes that build on the conceptual metaphor "space is an ocean" in her exploration of both the outer and the inner cosmos.
Faculties and Departments:04 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
04 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > Departement Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften > Fachbereich Englische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
UniBasel Contributors:Vögele, Pius Jonas
Item Type:Article, refereed
Article Subtype:Research Article
Publisher:Taylor & Francis
ISSN:1529-5036
e-ISSN:1479-5809
Note:Publication type according to Uni Basel Research Database: Journal article
Identification Number:
Last Modified:09 Jun 2021 15:52
Deposited On:09 Jun 2021 15:52

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