Afropunk SA could soon be as big as its US counterpart, says founder

It's been a 15-year journey for Afropunk founder Matthew Morgan from the establishment of a website in 2003 set up to promote a documentary about a "subculture within a subculture".

It became the go-to site for thousands of black American and diasporic youth keen to share style, music and cultural influences from outside the mainstream, and launched a festival that is now spread across three continents and will arrive in Brazil in 2020.

Black-owned and socially conscious Afropunk currently hosts annual festivals in Brooklyn, Atlanta, London and Paris and is back for its second Johannesburg iteration this month.

For Morgan, Afropunk Johannesburg is key. "It's connecting the diaspora, first and foremost, and SA is of particular importance because it's our gateway to the continent and for me personally - I want to live between here and Brazil and never go back."

The arrival in Africa of the festival has been a long held goal, which Morgan links to a memory of "being in the parking lot in Brooklyn at maybe our second or third festival and we had a lot of African clothing and crafts, and there was more than I had seen growing up in the UK and I drew that connection to part of our film the Afropunk documentary where punk rock references in African culture were highlighted.

"I remember thinking that we'll never be whole until we're on the continent because we're not creating anything brand new, we're just reconnecting with our past and I think that's particularly important."

Morgan says that "people left the Joburg festival last year calling it 'The Pilgrimage' - there were 3,000 people who came from outside the country and for most of them it was their first time in SA."

For him and the Afropunk team, who work out of offices at Constitution Hill, "that's really significant because there's a passion around the continent from young people that I've never known growing up in London in a West Indian community but having lots of African friends - being African wasn't cool and African kids would pretend they were West Indian because the culture was second generation and that's reversed now."

Morgan also believes Joburg "has the potential to be as big as Brooklyn within the next two or three years".

Afropunk has also been at the forefront of creating a moment in which its focus on the continent has yielded mainstream popular culture acknowledgement and referencing in films such as Ryan Coogler's Black Panther.

For Morgan, this is the result of an attitude change but he doesn't believe in the idea of it being only a moment but rather, "the cat is out the bag and it's a natural progression because we've opened up people to new experiences and allowed them to consume new things and make choices about what they consume".

Morgan chooses the line-up, which this year includes Flying Lotus, The Internet, Kaytranada, Public Enemy, Thandiswa Red Mazwai, Moonchild Sanelly and Phuzekhemisi, based "on the shit I like but it changes and grows and I see things for the first time and I'm like, 'fuck that's incredible.'"

He observes that "in SA the relationship between the audience and artist is different. There's that sense of freedom that you get when you're in a space that feels safe to you and you can experiment with something new. You can't beat that if you can even attempt to recreate that, which is in essence what we try to do, so here we are."

You'll see Morgan out in the crowd during the festival because while he might be the organiser, he's also a fan and his "job at the festival is to watch the bands".

He's looking forward to local electronic musician Muzi. "I want to see how he plays in front of the audience. I haven't seen Moonchild Sanelly so I really want to see her; Flying Lotus has a 3D show and that's going to be the first of its kind on the continent, so I want to see how that's received; we know Kaytranada is going to kill it and he's Haitian and so he'll be particularly touched to be here.

"Then we're bringing two of the founders of Black Lives Matter who are particularly into music so it'll be interesting to see their responses to the acts - someone like Azagai who is the Public Enemy of Mozambique, so it'll be interesting and of course there's Public Enemy. Chuck D is still the man."

• The 2018 Afropunk Festival is taking place at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg on December 30 and 31. For information and tickets, visit afropunkfest.com