About Benj Demott

Addressing the United States Congress in February 1990, newly-elected Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel said his “one great certainty” is that “consciousness precedes being, and not the other way around, as the Marxists claim.” It is this idea that is debated and ultimately upheld in Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll. Czechoslovakia’s Charter 77 movement and Velvet … Read more

“Are we still alive?” That’s the line incarnating the unexpectedly avant-garde challenge in Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. It’s when the film steps beyond the simple conventions of genre filmmaking—of being a movie about an invasion from Mars—and expresses our very contemporary concern with survival. Yes, this line speaks to post-9/11 consciousness. It gets … Read more

“Comprehension is not a requisite of cooperation.” – Cornel West making his Hollywood film debut in The Matrix Reloaded More people – including Black people – have seen The Matrix than have ever heard of Herman Sonny Blount. Blount was a pianist, composer, band leader and sci-fi visionary born in Birmingham, Alabama, almost a century … Read more

Now that hiphop culture has become the lingua franca of international media and business, it ironically keeps a class of Black Americans, especially youth, in isolation. That’s how hiphop preserves it source–the engine of its innovation and perpetuation and commerciality. This conclusion is unavoidable after perusing educational statistics or watching many of the current Dirty … Read more

A knowledgeable hiphop lover’s list of the best rap artists would not include Eminem, the 30-year-old white rapper (born Marshall Mathers III) from Detroit. Lacking Scarface’s sonority, Chuck D’s vision, Biggie’s fluency, L.L. Cool J’s flair, Slick Rick’s humor, Jay Z’s brilliance, Ice Cube’s astuteness, Rakim’s flow, Ice-T’s roguishness, Flavor Flav’s ingenuity, Snoop Dogg’s slyness, … Read more

The following thought experiment was inspired, or provoked, by this year’s art scandale, the “Mirroring Evil” exhibit that opened at the Jewish Museum in March; and in particular by Roee Rosen’s installation, which invites us to imagine that we are Eva Braun having a last night of sex with Adolf Hitler: Imagine that the exhibit … Read more

The James Allen exhibit “Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America,” which opened in New York in 2000 and is now touring the country, deserves more than the pious attention it has received to date. The show calls us to “witness” the acts of atrocity it documents. But this witnessing is a far more involving and … Read more