Afro-punk movement hard to define

Spooner and Morgan have a shared experience as two mixed-race kids who came of age in predominantly white surroundings. Spooner was a punk rocker who wondered upon his arrival in New York why there were so few blacks in the hardcore scene. Morgan, who was working in the music industry as a manager of mainstream acts, kept meeting alternative black artists who couldn't find a creative home. Together they developed a movie that explored the Afro-punk community. The film did well at the Toronto Film Festival, Morgan said, but he wanted to bring all the pieces together in one platform.

The weeklong annual Afro-Punk festival launched in Brooklyn in 2005 and has since featured a number of now recognizable artists such as Janelle Monae and Santi White aka Santogold. Afro-punk, as a recognized movement, may be relatively young – it is often compared to the early days of hip-hop – but genre defying artists such as Living Colour, Bad Brains and Fishbone have lurked on the scene since the late '70s and early '80s. They didn't gain widespread acceptance (which is kind of the punk rock ethos), but Morgan felt it had to do with economics.

"All the people I knew in the rock business or who were punk rock were very wealthy or middle class people," he said noting that it takes a lot of cash to keep performing for 10 or 12 years and fund European tours while waiting to hit it big.

Still, Atlanta has been a hub for black alternative acts who weren't necessarily rolling in dough.

"We had a real strong underground Afro-punk movement in Atlanta for the longest," said Dallas Austin, who has taken part in the Afro-Punk festival in the past. "When it was Fishbone and Bad Brains, you had to be part of that and that was the only way to get a hold to it."

Now he said, there is so much access to more experimental music, that it has almost become mainstream. But despite having a history at least as long as hip-hop, Afro-punk as a music genre seemed to be eclipsed by it. Atlanta-based acts such as Joi, Goodie Mob and OutKast thrive on experimentation but stayed under the banner of urban music, Saul Williams said.

"Hip-hop was really important because it was about expressing a sense of confidence," said Williams in an attempt to explain why hip-hop overshadowed Afro-punk. "The goal of most emcees was to never lose your cool. The idea of an emcee being heartless was popular, whereas with rock and punk, the goal oftentimes is to lose your cool and show the whole range of emotions going from being completely confident to being completely insecure. We had to gain that confidence first."

Williams who graduated from Morehouse in 1994 with a dual major in drama and philosophy has become a noted poet and actor, but his roots, he said, are in music. His most recent album, "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust," was produced by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. "The album is about the process of living up to yourself and becoming yourself regardless of whatever boundaries have been imposed on you from the outside," he said.

And that's as good a definition of Afro-punk as any.

Event Preview

Afro-Punk Presents Saul Williams & guests "The Niggy Tardust Experience", 9 p.m., Wednesday, $13 -- $15, The Loft, 1374 West Peachtree Street, 404-885-1365. www.theloftatl.com