Dr. Regina Bradley, award-winning writer, researcher, and professor of African Diaspora Studies and English at Kennesaw State University talks about Southern Black American culture, Afrofuturism, and sound. She considers herself to be an Afrofuturist "by association" and defines the term Afrofuturism as the use of technology and possibilities for the future for Black people, thinking about themselves in a way that it's outside of the past and present circumstances, striving to create a space for them to be free. For her, it is an emancipation practice and a "space to be unapologetically oneself or envision what [that] would look like." When it comes to sound and Afrofuturism, she credits her father as her introduction to them through funk music. Dr. Bradley also reflects on Southern Blackness as cyclical and how, through the use of slang, differing places can come together. She also states that to be able to sonically appreciate the possibilities of Afrofuturism, one has to go from funk, to Parliament, to Outkast, to Organized Noise. In reflecting about the complications of sonic lineage for Southern Black folks specifically, "being able to see how sound and sound production resonate in different pockets of society is definitely the way to go'" she offers. Interviewed by MSU Professor Julian Chambliss.
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