DRUM GO

Set to a Toro Y Moi instrumental, “DRUM GO” imagines Black diasporic dance in the language of 20th century video-vixens and the editing cadence associated with social media virality. Entirely improvised, Drum Go seeks to complicate the portrayal of black female sexuality as deviant, manufactured and low-brow, while paying homage to black eroticism's cultural prominence dating back to ancient African cosmology.

Moving Image Installation, 2024

Directed, Edited and Performed by SOL

Filmed by Josh SPNR

Music by Toro Y Moi

My first visceral encounter with the erotic occurred when I was 5 years old: I stumbled upon a pop-up advertisement for porn on the family desktop computer. However, my education in sensuality likely began even sooner with my parents unwittingly modeling the art of seduction. My mother's beauty and my father's charisma effortlessly unlocked doors that no university degree could. Discounts, invitations, and opportunities were easily yielded from their softened gazes.

Having witnessed the utility of erotic persuasion, I came to view my sexual expression as an inheritance of sorts—a redeeming aspect of adulthood I could look forward to despite the somber realities of growing older. Yet, as I navigated professional and academic spheres, a stark contrast emerged. Respectability politics and the stigma surrounding sexuality loomed large, particularly for Black women. It became evident that legitimacy in spaces characterized foremost by their exclusivity deemed overt sexuality a liability rather than a commendable expression of one’s empowerment. Puritan ideals of sexual morality (more easily recognized as whorephobia) were perpetuated by my peers and superiors alike. Gradually, my education, professional stature, and sense of bodily shame grew in direct proportion. My indoctrination insisted that eroticism—or anything even remotely sexually suggestive—was not worth the potential reputational damage I would incur as a Black woman in “elite” space.

My journey of sexual disempowerment within academia and the labor economy is situated within a broader historical framework of cis-hetero-colonial-patriarchy aimed at subduing the bodily sovereignty of gender-expansive non-white individuals. Black people, in particular, have endured relentless scrutiny and suppression of their erotic autonomy under the purview of white supremacist ideologies. This legacy of policing can be traced back as early as the late 19th century when European colonizers began forcefully imposing their governance onto indigenous peoples. This colonial endeavor — described by Rudyard Kipling as “the white man's burden” — included the enforcement of rigid gender logics, predicated on the European perception of continental Africa as innately sexually-deviant. These logics of a superior sexual ethic have since evolved into a hyper-vigilance surrounding Black eroticism in media, evidenced by widespread accusations that Black women celebrities such as Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, The City Girls, and countless others serve as pawns in a hyper-sexualized agenda deployed to impede progress within the Black community.

Years ago, I began studying African folklore in an effort to decolonize my spirituality. Through my studies, I discovered deities like Oshun and Eshu (Yoruba tradition), Erzulie (Vodou tradition), and Mami Wata—all revered within their pantheons for their sexual charismas. Within these diasporic traditions, erotic power is esteemed as a virtue capable of nurturing intimacy and bestowing prosperity.

In my work "DRUM GO," set to the pulsating rhythm of Toro Y Moi's "Harm In Changes," I reclaim a heritage of somatic liberation. DRUM GO is a moving portrait of sexual emancipation as well as a subaltern utterance of resistance to institutional reprimand. Through improvised movement and fast-cut edits stylized after late 20th century video vixens, I recast “SOL” as a deified ancient-futuristic embodiment of the jezebel (see also: loose woman/harlot/femme fatale /siren/temptress/etc.) The result is a sensorial work invoking orgasmic disorientation. 

Citations + Reading Recommendations:

Cisneros, Sandra. Loose Woman. Vintage Books, 1995.

Hakim, Catherine. Erotic Capital: The Power of Attraction in the Boardroom and the Bedroom. Basic Books, 2011.

Lele, Ócha'ni. Teachings of the Santería Gods: The Spirit of the Odu. Destiny Books, 2010

Lorde, Audre. "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power." Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, The Crossing Press, 2007, pp. 53-59.