In the Black Fantastic: Rashaad Newsome x The Twilite Tone

These were artists who each drew on science fiction, myth and Afrofuturism to question our knowledge of the world through their work.

One of those artists is Rashaad Newsome, whose work often celebrates and abstracts Black and Queer contributions to the art canon. Newsome kindly joined us for the first of a four-part podcast series in which we pair artists with musicians and writers for a conversation drawing on the themes of the exhibition.

Newsome’s co-converser was the producer, composer and DJ, The Twilite Tone, and the pair joined presenter Chrystal Genesis for a discussion that roamed from the ways in which artists can respond to the notion of Afrofuturism, to their respective links to Louisiana, and the unexpected challenges of sourcing suitable materials.

‘In order to keep fighting the good fight, we have to find space for joy. And I was thinking about how can I visualise joy? So I was looking at a lot of images of children smiling. There’s something very pure and beautiful about a child’s smile. It’s before the decolonisation, it’s before the dehumanisation.’

Rashaad Newsome

Born in New Orleans, and now living between Brooklyn and Los Angeles, Rashaad Newsome is an artist whose work blends several practices, including collage, assemblage, sculpture, film, video, animation, photography, music, computer programming, software engineering, community organising, and performance.

Among his works exhibited in Hayward Gallery’s In the Black Fantastic are collages, including Isolation (2020), which are created from a complex layering of references from art history, traditional African sculpture, architecture, and commercial media, and the sculpture Ansista (2019).

The Twilite Tone is a record producer, recording artist, composer, DJ, and radio host from Chicago. Initially coming to prominence as a producer for rapper Common, Tone has gone on to work with artists including Big Sean, John Legend, Gorillaz and Kanye West. In 2020, he released his debut solo album The Clearing showcasing a sound he describes as ‘trans-genre’ — a mixture of house, electronic funk, and instrumental hip-hop.

This podcast series is hosted and executive produced by Chrystal Genesis, produced by Jaja Muhammad, researched by Zara Martin, mixed by Carmela DiClemente, and was conceived by Glen Wilson.