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Volume 6, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 2632-6825
  • E-ISSN: 2632-6833
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Abstract

A comparison of two visions of the future from the year 2000: by the trio of the same name and by Mike Ladd. Many aspects of these albums are considered, including production and even the cover art, although the focus is on the lyrics. Del the Funky Homosapien draws on and and is broadly concerned with the plight of humanity and the downtrodden, while Ladd riffs on and and foregrounds racial concerns. The sound and range of references on take the idea of a syncretic future to the extreme. The trajectory of Del’s rap leads to the blaring ‘Memory Loss’ and the seeming eradication of hope, while Ladd memorializes Amadou Diallo and ‘all those killed by cops’ in a surprisingly gentle and expansive finale. The close consideration allows us to wonder what the imagination of rappers (and others in hip hop) can uniquely offer as we envision the future – and why there has been so little future-oriented rap.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence (Award 332643)
  • The Center for Digital Narrative
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Intellect Ltd.
This article is Open Access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC), which allows users to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the article, as long as the author is attributed and the article is not used for commercial purposes. To view a copy of the licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
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/content/journals/10.1386/ghhs_00107_7
2025-07-15
2025-12-05
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/content/journals/10.1386/ghhs_00107_7
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  • Article Type: Other
Keyword(s): afrofuturism; future; intertextuality; memory; metaphor; science fiction; syncreticism

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