FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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Rhea L. Combs
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J.Majiq
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Highyellowproductions
www.afropunk.com

Atlanta Premiere Film Screening Of Afro-Punk:
The Rock n Roll Nigger ExperienceAttend the exclusive, premiere Atlanta film screening of Afro Punk, the highly acclaimed and anticipated documentary by filmmaker James Spooner. For one night only, Tuesday, February 10, 2004 at 8:30 p.m.,

Rheality.com and Vibes Music and More present at MJQ Concourse, the 66-minute documentary that explores race identity within the punk scene. With Atlanta being a bedrock for contemporary music, this film about the black experience within the punk rock scene is overdue a screening in the South. More than any typical ‘black history month documentary,’ Afro Punk tackles the hard questions such as issues of loneliness, exile, interracial dating and black power. The film follows the lives of four people who have dedicated themselves to the punk rock lifestyle and experience the duality that a person of color feels in a mostly white community.

The documentary features performances by Bad Brains, Brooklyn rocker Tamar Kali, Cipher, and Ten Grand. It also contains exclusive interviews by members of Fishbone, D. H. Peligro of Dead Kennedy’s, Carley of Candiria, and Chaka Malik of Orange 9mm fame, to name a few. MJQ Concourse, one of Atlanta’s original venues for promoting the punk scene, is located at 736 Ponce de Leon Ave, NE, Atlanta, GA. The event begins sharply at 8:30 p.m. There is a $7 cover.

The style of the documentary inter-cuts interviews from scores of black punk rockers from all over the nation with scenes from the four protagonists’ lives. They each come from different regions, generations, genders, and sexual preferences, but their stories are the same. The black rock n roll experience is universal.

Afro Punk has been screened at numerous film festivals, both nationally and internationally. A few include: the Toronto International Film Festival, the American Black Film Festival, the Black Harvest Film Festival, and the Jamerican Film Festival. Afro Punk received the Audience Choice Award, Best Documentary Film Award, and the Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking Award, by the Black Harvest Film Festival, the Jamerican Film Festival, and the Roxbury Film Festival, respectively.

James Spooner came into film making out of a passion to tell his story. Growing up between the deserts of California and the streets of New York, he was no stranger to duality. The thing that separated him from the other kids fashioning spikes and bright red hair was that he is black. Although James lost the punk “look,” he was still feeling alienated. He started to realize that punk rock for all the things it had taught him had also nurtured the suppression of his identity as a black man He wanted to talk to other black people who grew up punk and he found that those connections provided a fulfillment that the scene never could. As a result, he set forth to create this documentary as a support system for every black kid, for every outsider, for every Afro Punk who has been made to feel the “rock n roll nigger experience.”

Rheality.com is production company and web-based magazine that stretches the boundaries of contemporary cultural practices through the development and promotion of innovative programs and projects.

Located in downtown Decatur Square for nearly a decade, Vibes Music and More has supplied the metro Atlanta area with some of the freshest, cutting edge music available. Specializing in imports, down tempo and hard-to find tracks, Vibes Music and More is a haven for DJs, music devotees, and aficionados.