Fake Ad: Galactic Melodies
A couple weeks ago, I reached out to @thecitybee to ask if I could use her work in a magazine project about transnationalism in Muslim music that I'd been working on with two other people for a class on Islamic pop music. Bee agreed to let me use her work so long as I gave her credit in my bibliography and included one of her socials in the finished product. So...voila! Above is the fake ad I created for a concert featuring Spock and Uhura and below is @thecitybee's original artwork, which was commissioned by the author of the fic that inspired it, @jolaosongoni:
When I saw this piece and recognized the kora in Uhura's lap, I flipped out. I love every chance we get to see Spock and Uhura play or listen to music together in TOS and SNW and this immediately sparked a lot of joy.
What I love most about this piece is that it places Uhura in a very specific cultural, familial and musical context, something that the Star Trek franchise itself hasn't ever really done. The kora is a West African string instrument widely played by griot families. Griots are musicians, storytellers and poets who preserve genealogies, oral histories and traditions of their peoples. The kora allows some griots to preserve these cultural histories through music and praise singing. While the practice of playing the kora has historically been passed down through patrilineal lines, there are women who play kora like Gambian griot musician Sona Jobarteh, who was featured on the cover of my group's magazine (she's a really cool musician, I highly recommend checking out her work). Star Trek doesn't have a great track record of giving their characters of color distinct cultural backgrounds beyond having them be played by actors of color (and sometimes, they don't even do that). Having Uhura be a kora player makes her an active participant in and carrier of West African history and culture, a living legacy of a particular and greatly honored line of musicianship. It intentionally creates her as a West African woman, or at least as a direct descendant of West African kora players and solidifies the cultural importance of kora playing beyond the past, present and into the 23rd century, celebrating Uhura's Blackness and African identity as things that are inextricable from her character.
Thank you so much to @thecitybee for agreeing to let me include your work in my own! You made a fellow trekkie and huge music nerd very happy :)
For anyone who's curious, here is a link to Sona Jobarteh's website:
Gambian Artist and first female Kora virtuoso from a west african Griot family. Distinguished vocalist, activist, composer and educator. The
