When asked to name famous punk musicians, a sea of white faces appears before me. The ‘pioneers of punk’ including The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Iggy Pop, Black Flag and every artist on Spotify’s classic punk playlist… all privileged white men who didn’t have to fight their way through a heavily racist and biased music industry to succeed. But what about Black punks? Frequently erased, overlooked or completely disregarded by historians we’ve decided to set the record straight and celebrate the significance of black punks (Afropunks) in punk’s evolution.
Being an Afropunk entails striking similarities with the white-dominated punk subculture, the fashion choices typically including exuberant hairstyles (the infamous Mohawks), piercings, dyed hair, tattoos and dark clothing and although this outlandish style has garnered unwanted attention and scrutiny from the rest of society for both cultures, Afropunks have had additional obstacles to overcome. Being a black punk means being ostracised by white punks for dressing in a similar fashion to them, it also means being berated and criticised by black friends, family and strangers in their communities who do not support their decision, nor comprehend why a fellow black person would want to be apart of a culture dominated by white people.
There are multiple testimonies of this negative treatment of black punks within Spooner’s 2003 documentary ‘Afropunk’, parents disowning their children, mothers throwing away entire wardrobes of clothing and strangers hurling abuse at black punks as they walk down the street. Despite this negativity, Afropunks have embraced their ancestral roots combining their punk persona’s with other cultural styles and beliefs - dreadlocks were donned by members of the legendary 80’s punk group Bad Brains, who are avid Rastafarian’s and lovers of both punk and reggae. Whilst uniquely vibrant hairstyles and large face piercings historically worn by indigenous African tribespeople are a major element of today's punk style.
An Afropunk bands sound closely resembles its white punk counterpart, with raucous riffs, brash vocals, intensely wild gigs and anti-authoritarian lyrics taking aim at the establishment. But there are elements to Afropunk bands that are significant. Decipher, a New York hardcore Afropunk band in the ’00s, regularly took aim at ingrained discrimination within our society, the context of their songs primarily about the liberation of black people from racist oppression. Bad Brains combined musical elements of reggae with punk as a bi-product of their Rastafarian faith, explaining in a 1983 interview with the NME that embracing both genres was no contradiction, and combining the two works so well because they are “two extremes of the musical revolution”. Whilst more recently London post-punk band Big Joanie address the hardships of being a black female in today’s society with tracks like 2016’s ‘Crooked Room’ - a metaphor for black women attempting to navigate our racist, sexist, classist society while maintaining a sense of self as trying to find your vertical in a crooked room.
Apart from the contextual themes of Afropunk bands, the fundamental disparity of skin colour is the most heartbreaking. Frequently Afropunk bands with more talent, creativity and musical proficiency than their white counterparts find themselves without peer support, any management or a record label. Being an Afropunk band is a continuous struggle to break into an institutionally racist and white dominated music industry that fails countless incredible musicians for the mere fact that they are black. One such failure was Philadelphia hardcore punk band Pure Hell, who moved to New York in the 1970s to establish themselves in the underground scene.
Rising to notoriety after performing with the infamous Sid Vicious, Pure Hell went on to tour Europe where their manager Curtis Knight (who discovered Jimi Hendrix) strategically marketed the band’s race by producing posters that read ‘All the way from America, the world’s only black punk band’. In a 2018 interview with Dazed magazine bassist Lenny ‘Steel’ Boles reflected on the inherent racism that plagued the band throughout their career, including Knight’s questionable marketing ploy to sensationalise the band’s race to attract audiences. “I said to Curtis, ‘Why do you have to call us a black band?’ Of course, that’s what we were, but we really didn’t think in those terms at the time. People in Europe were curious about the band before we even arrived. They were looking at it like a novelty. They didn’t believe we really existed.”
Despite the tour’s success and the band’s popularity across Europe, Pure Hell would never be signed by a record label. The rotting core of an institutionally racist music industry resulted in racially biased Label Execs hampering the band’s chances of commercial success. Opting instead to sign white punk bands with half Pure Hell’s talent who hadn’t earned their place on the higher rungs of the underground scene. Boles further reflected during his interview with Dazed how any record label that did show interest had requested the band change their style and sound in order to encompass the racial stereotype of 70’s black musicians, “Everybody was trying to make us do this Motown thing, saying like, ‘You guys are black so you’ve gotta do something that’s danceable,’” Boles adds. “They kept trying to make us more ‘funky’. Everything we liked had nothing to do with dance music. We were not having it. So we opted not to get signed.” After almost ten years devoted to the underground scene Pure Hell, similarly to the punk movement they loved so dearly, lost momentum and subsequently broke up in 1980.
Following the 1970’s success of Detroit punk pioneers Death and funk-rock singer Betty Davis, the next twenty years band’s such as Bad Brains and Fishbone would keep the Afropunk scene alive before the subculture was catapulted into the limelight following the release of a crucially significant cult-documentary in 2003 entitled ‘Afropunk’. Produced by independent filmmaker and avid punk rocker James Spooner, the documentary consists of interviews with Afropunks across America and is a distinctive insight into life as an African-American punk, the uniqueness of racial experience playing a focal role in the film’s importance. ‘Afropunk’ underlines the obstacles black punks confront in order to be a part of the culture they love, from being ridiculed by fellow black people in the community for their lifestyle choices, to being sensationalised as the ‘token’ black punk at gigs, surrounded by a sea of white privileged faces. The critically acclaimed documentary gained a strong following and in 2005 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music the first official Afropunk Festival took place - embracing black punks, showcasing black musicians and celebrating black culture.
Fast forward to today and the future of Afropunk looks bright, with artists like Meet me @ the Altar, Big Joanie, Danny Denial and TCIYF carrying the black fist of their punk-pioneering predecessor’s with pride.
If you want to learn more, you can watch the Afropunk documentary here.
We have also put together an Afropunk playlist on Spotify of all the amazing artists mentioned in this feature! Simply click here or search 'Wake Up The Noise' on Spotify to listen.
Article Cover Image Courtesy of: Simon Chetrit