Community-driven music platform Currents.fm is hosting an international livestream event celebrating Black culture within the Chinese diaspora this weekend. Supported by RADII, the event is entitled 黑美 (hēi mĕi; “Black beauty”) and will feature talks, music and more on Saturday 21 November.
The event will take place in Currents’ digital club venue COMMON and is being put together by Kadallah Burrowes, who says it’s about a shared acknowledgment of humanity.
“If I was out in China and made eye contact with another Black person, we’d always do the nod,” he tells RADII. “The nod is an instant bonding moment, a rare acknowledgment of shared humanity and solidarity. My non-Black friends would see it and say ‘what was that? Did you know that person?’”
“This event is like a formalization of that nod.”
The celebration will also feature COMMON IMMERSIVE, Currents.fm’s new format of participatory livestream based on many-channel audio, which allows up to four friends to link their computers together to receive a broadcast simultaneously.
From Currents.fm’s official Instagram post:
“The day will feature performances, talks, and panel discussions from around the globe, giving a platform to those that live at this crossroads to offer their own perspectives, unmediated by white supremacy, American exceptionalism, and eurocentrism.”
Artists based in Shanghai, Taipei, NYC, and LA will perform, and RADII’s Associate Editor Adan Kohnhorst will facilitate a conversation on hip hop, kung fu, and Black art in China.
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“Back home in the US, people tell me ‘oh, I didn’t even know there were Black people in China,’” says Burrowes. “We’re trying to increase the visibility of these multicultural artists, and dissolve misconceptions around Blackness in China.”
For 黑美, this is just the beginning — future iterations of the event will aim to amplify Asian voices, and deepen the conversation around African-Asian intersectionality.
Tune in from 4 PM UTC on November 21 and find more details over on Currents.FM.
