Lectures in Music Studies: Inventing Afrofuturist Funk - Sun Ra, Jimi Hendrix, and George Clinton Explore Galaxies Far, Far Away

Michael Smith is presenting Inventing Afrofuturist Funk: Sun Ra, Jimi Hendrix, and George Clinton Explore Galaxies Far, Far Away on Monday, November 30, at the Music and Dance Library on the OSU campus. Smith is an assistant teaching professor and the area coordinator of jazz studies at The Ohio State University, and this talk is part of the Lectures in Music Studies series.

The title tells you exactly where he's heading: the intersection of funk and afrofuturism, with Sun Ra, Jimi Hendrix, and George Clinton as the three pillars. If you're familiar with them, you know the territory — Ra's cosmic mythology, Hendrix's psychedelic expansion, and Clinton's P-Funk empire. Smith is bringing them together to look at how they each pushed funk into outer space, and the talk is open to the public, so you don't have to be a student or a musician to come in.

It's worth knowing the context this sits in. Lectures in Music Studies — formerly Lectures in Musicology — is a series at OSU that pairs musicology and theory with conversation, co-sponsored by the School of Music and the university libraries. The program draws on a wide range of the university's research centers, including the Center for African Studies, the Center for Folklore Studies, the Humanities Institute, and the Wexner Center for the Arts, among others. That gives you a sense of the kind of ground these talks cover.

Logistically, it's an easy one: the talk is on Monday, November 30, at 4 PM in room 205 on the second floor of the Music and Dance Library, which is part of the 18th Avenue Library at 175 W. 18th Ave. Admission is free.