If anyone was looking for a clear introduction to Afrofuturism, the work of Coby Kennedy brings all the threads together in one astonishing work called In the Service of a Villain. Here’s more from JUXTAPOZ:
In his work, Kennedy addresses the misapplication of the word Thug. Often used as a catch-all term for Black youths in the minds of privileged white America, the Thug is presented in Kennedy’s universe as the Thuggernaut, a weaponized biological slur created by manipulating stolen fetuses from the black community, gestating them into huge metal pachydermic shells. Now four stories tall, with six humongous lumbering brown arms, an oversized threatening genitalia and one cycloptic eye glaring victimizingly down from its bulking hardened steel shell of a body, they are set loose to roam the urban landscape dishing out death, self genocide and general sociopathic behavior designed to destroy black society from within.
Manifesting alongside (and emboldened as a consequence of) The Thuggernaut, a golem entity known as Jimmy Crow emerges. Composed of all the angst and pain experienced throughout the Black Diaspora in North America, Jimmy Crow took the name of the post-Civil War era that brought atrocities against Black people in America through untold violence and terrorism. A spirit of vengeance, Jimmy Crow is a force of reciprocity through destruction, and salvation through mythology.
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