For centuries, Africa has been the center of the global trade in gold. Synonymous with wealth and power in African cultures, this precious metal was also central to the emergence of Europe’s colonial empires and the contemporary world made in their wake. Black and gold have thus always been conjoined and yet set in opposition: blackness as negation, gold as universal standard of value. Black & Gold is a genealogy of this seeming contradiction—a global history of value told through...

In Bloodflowers W. Ian Bourland examines the photography of Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955–1989), whose art is a touchstone for cultural debates surrounding questions of gender and queerness, race and diaspora, aesthetics and politics, and the enduring legacy of slavery and colonialism. Born in Nigeria, Fani-Kayode moved between artistic and cultural worlds in Washington, DC, New York, and London, where he produced the bulk of his provocative and often surrealist and homoerotic photogra...

In 1991, a loose-knit collective released a record called Blue Lines under the name Massive Attack, splicing together American hip-hop and soul with the sounds of the British underground. With its marauding bass lines, angular guitars, and psychedelic effects, Blue Lines built on the Caribbean soundsystems and nascent rave scene of the 1980s while also looking ahead to the group's signature blend of epic cinematics and lush downtempo. In the process, Blue Lines i...