Pictures from Black Futurist Reading and Open Mic Night: The Future Is Now

Tumani Onabiyi

D. Scot Miller

​We told you about the Black Futurist Reading and Open Mic thrown by writers D. Scot Miller and Shawn Taylor, but we had no idea how rad it was actually going to be. For one thing, the Sargent Johnson Gallery at the African American Arts & Culture Complex has an amazing art show by the same name up right now. It's freeking beautiful!

In the pictures that follow, photog Tumani Onabiyi caught not only only the cool-looking readers and audience members, but also the space-is-the-place art by Black Diamonds Shining art collective aka Ras Terms, Safety First, Deadeyes, Ash Rose, Antjuan Jones, and Brooks Golden. The future, and/or the alternative reality, is looking cosmically bright.

Tumani Onabiyi

​Shang-a-lang. If you don't know who Betty Davis is, fix that. She was the future back in the 1960s, and she still is. Miles divorced her because he said she was "too young and wild."