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<\/p>\nThe first time that artist and filmmaker James Spooner heard Patti Smith\u2019s song \u201cRock n Roll N\u2014,\u201d he cringed and reflected on the years of racism, microaggressions and abuse he dealt with as a young Black punk rocker in California\u2019s high desert and later, New York.<\/p>\n
According to Spooner\u2019s new book, \u201cIt Starts With Anger,\u201d this moment of reflection is a catalyst that prompts him to pursue a closer examination of the experiences and challenges Black people face in punk rock and alternative music scenes that are predominantly white.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there was such a thing as a \u2018Rock n Roll N\u2014\u2019 Patti Smith wasn\u2019t going to be the one to define it. Right then, I decided I was going to make a movie,\u201d Spooner writes in his book.<\/p>\n
In 2003, Spooner started working on a documentary called \u201cAfro-Punk,\u201d which took him across the country as he interviewed Black artists, musicians and fans to talk about their experiences in punk rock. \u201cAfro-Punk\u201d starts by calling out Smith\u2019s controversial song before diving into what it means to be Black in a music scene intended to welcome outsiders, but which nonetheless alienates and projects harmful values toward people who are not white.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think she\u2019s a bad person, I think she\u2019s a white person who was trying to be edgy and then just like doubled down her whole career,\u201d Spooner told The Times. \u201cI\u2019m all for and have always been understanding of people who make mistakes, people should have an opportunity to correct themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
The punk rock documentary is being rereleased this month after Spooner launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to remaster the film. The rerelease coincides with the publication of Spooner\u2019s new book, \u201cIt Starts With Anger,\u201d which covers the author\u2019s personal history, the creation of the documentary, the larger Afropunk brand (it does not use a hyphen like the film), and the eventual demise of his brainchild at the hands of corporate ventures. \u201cAfro-Punk\u201d will premiere in Los Angeles and New York, with a special screening and book talk on Sunday at the Skirball Cultural Center with former S.O.A. and Black Flag vocalist Henry Rollins.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung people at the time needed it,\u201d Spooner says about his documentary \u201cAfropunk.\u201d They needed that connection to see that there were other young Black punk rockers, they needed to hear from them and know that they had common experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Lisa Nola )<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore there was anything negative attached to it and before there was any corporate interest attached to it, people saw the movie and were like, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s my story, I guess I\u2019m an Afropunk and didn\u2019t even know it,\u2019 and then they started calling themselves that,\u201d Spooner said. \u201cI helped define an experience for a group of people in the underground, I inadvertently helped to define an experience for a lot of people who feel othered and ostracized.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spooner, who upheld punk\u2019s DIY ethos by shooting, producing, directing and editing the entire project himself, recently regained the rights to his film after a contentious years-long legal battle against his former business partner, Matthew Morgan, and Essence Ventures, the current owners of the Afropunk brand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way that it all turned out in the end, it\u2019s like, not everybody gets to see the long arc of justice in their lifetime, but to be so hurt and slighted and then watch karma do its thing is like, why waste time with being pissed off anymore? There are still things that I wished wouldn\u2019t have happened, but I\u2019m lucky in the end,\u201d the Afropunk founder said.<\/p>\n
After Spooner made his documentary, he realized how much the film resonated with Black punks who yearned for community and acceptance. Damon Locks, a visual artist and musician who was featured in the documentary and later worked as a publicist for the Afropunk festival, said he was \u201creally impressed\u201d with the film when it first came out, and that \u201cJames\u2019 instincts were correct\u201d when it came to the vision and execution.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung people at the time needed it, they needed that connection to see that there were other young Black punk rockers, they needed to hear from them and know that they had common experiences,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Eager to extend the reach of \u201cAfro-Punk\u201d beyond the documentary, Spooner began organizing a series of DIY underground punk shows known as \u201cThe Liberation Sessions,\u201d with the goal of developing this concept into a major festival. He also decided to enter a business relationship with Morgan, who offered to manage Spooner\u2019s creative affairs and help him take \u201cAfro-Punk\u201d to the next level.<\/p>\n
According to Spooner, Morgan wanted to bring in corporate sponsors and feature music genres outside of punk to generate more interest and maximize profits. Spooner said he reluctantly compromised, yet after several years of working with Morgan, Spooner grew disillusioned with what Afropunk the festival became.<\/p>\n
Maurice \u201cMoe\u201d Mitchell, vocalist for hardcore band Cipher and national director of the Working Families Party, was featured in the documentary and performed at several Afropunk shows and festivals. He said what happened with Afropunk is \u201ca tale as old as time\u201d and Morgan being outside of the movement led to \u201cmoneyed interests\u201d altering what Spooner had created.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt some point, those interests figure out how to co-opt, how to monetize, how to profit, how to take over this thing and it becomes a shell of itself, no longer owned or operated by the original originators, just a product or a marketing scheme for some company,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cAnd that is rinse and repeat what happens to really good art and really good movements, and it\u2019s what happened with Afropunk.\u201d<\/p>\n
By 2008, Spooner decided he wanted to walk away. He moved to Los Angeles and signed over the Afropunk rights and trademark to Morgan.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy priority was to the kids \u2026 and I didn\u2019t want for them to not have Afropunk just because I was over it, just because I moved on to the other side of the country, I could have just been like, \u2018F\u2014 you, everything\u2019s in my name, if you want it, sue me,\u2019 I could have done that and I probably would have won because everything is in my name,\u201d the punk filmmaker said. \u201cI also was incredibly broke, I was not only broke when I moved to L.A., I was like $20,000 in debt on credit cards, so it was not like I was in a good place to continue this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
As \u201cAfro-Punk\u201d returns to screens in Los Angeles and New York, Spooner leans into punk\u2019s rebellious ethos, reclaiming his work and spotlighting Black liberation in loud, uncompromising ways.<\/p>\n
(Lisa Nola )<\/p>\n
In 2020, Spooner sued Morgan for failing to make contractual annual payments and failing to observe a clause in their 2010 agreement that mandated that if more than 50% of the company was sold, Spooner was entitled to a share of the profit. In 2020, Essence Ventures acquired the Afropunk LLC, but Spooner was not made aware of the sale. After a complicated legal battle against both Morgan and Essence Ventures, Spooner settled, successfully recovering the rights to the film in 2025, which he says was more important to him than financial compensation.<\/p>\n
Representatives for Essence Ventures did not immediately return requests for comment. <\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t start \u2018Afro-Punk\u2019 with money in mind, I wanted people to see my film,\u201d Spooner said. \u201cI wanted people to see my film, and then people saw the film, and then I wanted those people to stay in the room together and become friends, and all of that happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell, who ended up becoming friends with Spooner after participating in the documentary, said he is \u201cvery happy\u201d that Spooner \u201ccame out vindicated\u201d in the legal struggle. The Cipher frontman believes \u201cAfro-Punk\u201d is an important documentary that shows \u201cwhat it means to be a person of color in America,\u201d and which makes visible the identity issues Black people experience beyond the punk rock community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s also the story of Black people when we lean into our liberation, right?\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cLike we are expressing ourselves in very loud and uncompromising ways that challenge the status quo and so I\u2019m really happy that this film is coming out because this is a moment where we need as many people, as many Black people, to lean into who we are in loud and uncompromising ways, because we have a whole political structure that is demanding our compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Spooner celebrates the release of his new book and the premiere of his remastered film \u2014 which he says still needs distribution \u2014 he hopes that he can continue shedding light on the Black experience and sharing the legacy of what he created as a young Black punk rocker.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s wild to me that I made something when I was 25 that people still care about, and I hope that it keeps reaching another generation and proves itself to be valuable in some kind of way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first time that artist and filmmaker James Spooner heard Patti Smith\u2019s song \u201cRock n Roll N\u2014,\u201d he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[267165,267166,60495,1549,146,267167,25052,878,45683,85,46,267164,48219,397,46799,1266,185586,267163,9475],"class_list":["post-590527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-afro-punk","tag-afropunk","tag-black-people","tag-documentary","tag-entertainment","tag-essence-ventures","tag-experience","tag-film","tag-first-time","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-matthew-morgan","tag-mitchell","tag-movies","tag-new-book","tag-people","tag-punk-rock","tag-spooner","tag-thing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}