By Muniyra Douglas
Minister Faust’s 2011 novel, The Alchemists of Kush, is considered literature’s first “hip hop epic“. But Minister Faust’s creative Africentrist vision isn’t limited to novels––he also reaches into video games, sketch comedy, journalism, podcasts, and more. Such breadth is perfectly in line with his passion for aspirational stories and style: self-described on his website, “Minister Faust’s Afritopianism draws from myriad ancient African civilizations, explores present realities, and imagines a future in which people struggle not only for justice, but for the stars.”
Muniyra Douglas: Tell me about your writing process.
Minister Faust: My writing process is not very much different than it probably is for many writers. I take an idea that has been exciting me or infuriating me for a while––or in some cases I take several ideas that have been exciting me and several ideas that have been infuriating me for a while. [I] read about them and discuss them with other people, and then use some type of plot schema such as Save the Cat, which is an excellent screenwriter variation on the Hero’s Journey, to organize the events and better to understand the characters.
I also like to create, or at least save, sets of images that inspire aspects of the story. I always create playlists of songs from a huge range of genres across the world in order to have an inspiring soundtrack for whatever I’m creating. The music puts me into the mind space to understand the mood and the pacing of a given scene.
MD: What is unique about your style of science fiction?
MF: My style of science fiction, which I call Afritopianism (note the spelling; it’s not “Afro-”), is thematically engaged with global African civilizations of the ancient world, the medieval world (although that term really refers to European history and not to the civilizations of most of the planet), and the modern era, with speculation about the future. I engage with politics, cultures, sociology, psychology, food and cuisine, clothing, the arts, pop culture, religions, spirituality and mysticism, ecology, labour culture and labour struggle, and more.
You’ll notice that many of the items on that list are absent in much of science fiction: for many decades, many of the people writing science fiction took for granted the prevailing structures, cultures, and power relationships––and benefited from them. To the extent they understood those structures or even understood their existence (fish don’t know water exists, although water lets them move and contains all their food), they imagined those structures as without beginning, without substantial flaw, and without end. They could not imagine our world without them, and thus projected the existing world into the past and into the future in their own fantasies. However, as an Africentrist (preserve the spelling; there is no “o” in Africentrist) and Pan-Africanist, I am profoundly concerned with overthrowing our oppressors and creating a world of dignity and justice and joy.
MD: What kind of research did you complete as writing preparation for The Alchemists of Kush?
MF: My website includes several pages for The Alchemists of Kush. If you examine them you’ll see some writing and a few videos that discuss some of the preparation––or, what writers usually call research––that I did for the novel. That included continuing my reading about Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Kushite civilizations, as well as reading about the origins of the Nation of Gods and Earths (NGE), or as it is more commonly known, the Five Percenters––an offshoot of the Nation of Islam. I also interviewed authors who wrote about the NGE, some of whom are members.
The novel is an allegory in multiple directions. Drawing upon the archetypal relationships that Joseph Campbell expressed as the Hero’s Journey, I connect the Ancient Egyptian story of Heru, the origin of the Five Percenters, [with] the story of Raphael Garang, a fictional South Sudanese teen in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The preparation involved looking into numerous other matters, including various Sudanese languages and names, and minute topics such as the difference between a dap and a pound, which led me to learn about the music of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. I also needed to choose a name for my South Sudanese teen, which meant that as I looked through a variety of possibilities, I also checked the etymologies of those names. I found that the name Raphael contained fascinating and novel-relevant meaning in its original language.
Because of web searches on the name Raphael, I was delighted to learn of the musician Raphael Saadiq. Shortly after the book came out, a reader told me about a stunning song by Saadiq that seemed to have been written as a soundtrack for the book (yet I’d never heard it before) called “The Answer.” I spent a fair amount of time reading about the experiences of South Sudanese displaced peoples and refugees fleeing war and repression, and sometimes getting to interview South Sudanese people about their experiences coming to and living in Canada. I also interviewed Somali teens about their lives in Edmonton, because Somali teens are a major part of the book.
The book, I should say, is definitely not a YA novel.
MD: Threats of authoritative brutality and human captivity are prominent themes throughout the novel. They are clearly displayed, for example, during Raptor’s encounter with “Babyface” the police officer:
Off where the security cameras didn’t point, Babyface’d punched him in the jaw. Raptor went down and training sent the knife-edge of his foot into the cop’s balls. Babyface’s baton slashed
—
And again. And again, and again. Finally hauled him to the cruiser. While Raptor was in the back seat, the cop took out his Taser.
[…]
Collapsing, cuffed, into the back seat …
“That’s for mouthing off to the police,” said Babyface. “And this one’s for canning me.”
— lightning —
MD: Taking into consideration the current socio-political climate, and the very global protesting of police brutality against the Black community, how can citizens and organizations better educate themselves on these issues?
MF: The internet is awash with outstanding commentary and research on these issues. I would definitely recommend starting with The Good Fight’s “5 Ways to End Police Violence”. But there are countless pages to read from numerous perspectives offering insights that I myself have not yet learned. The most important message I can transmit to people is that if they’re focused on being a “good ally,” then they are focused on themselves. The goal is the goal. That goal is a just society. The just society is not just here, but everywhere around the world, including all the places where ruthless, wealthy people oppress and exploit the majority of humanity to bring us our cheap goods subsidized by blood and bullets.
The work is the work. The work is all of the well-organized effort and strategies and all the resources required to achieve the goal. If your focus is telling yourself that you are “a good person,” or “a good ally,” or a man who repeatedly calls himself to the mirror or to others “a good feminist,” you’re being vain. On the flip side, if you believe that total self-denial or accepting other people’s humiliation is part of the work, you are also focusing on yourself in a fantasy that says that, like Christ on the cross, by accepting pain and other people’s scorn you will transform the world. It doesn’t work that way; it’s a Saviour Complex fantasy. Instead, learn how the structures work. Learn about the people who run the structures and how to teach them, or slow them down, stop them, and replace them. Learn how to access the resources you will need in concerted action with others to change those structures or create new ones and continually improve them. Get your own ego, your own need for validation, and your own need for forgiveness, out of the way of the work.
MD: Space for Black identities in science fiction have increased over the years. But, in your opinion, what still needs to be done?
MF: It is true that more African characters, situations, cultures, and ideas are present in pop culture, which includes graphic novels, video games, television shows, movies, and novels.
It’s clear that whenever possible we must own the means of production, because unless we do, it will always be other people making decisions about how we are to be represented. For a very long time non-Africans have profited by creating grotesque and dehumanizing caricatures of Africans, sometimes under the guise of aiding us, as with White Saviour movies such as The Blind Side, Freedom Writers, Tears of Sun, and more. That type of missionary porn is a cancer. Some of us, however, have also created such work because we learned that publishers, movie studios, and record companies were buying it. We must stop creating such material.
As to others depicting us, it’s clear that in science fiction, most writers want to present aspirational characters as their protagonists, even though those aspirational characters may be complex and have numerous flaws. But when it comes time to depicting us, those same non-African writers create pathology porn. It’s noteworthy that the most successful Africentric film ever made is one that is thoroughly aspirational: Black Panther. It’s aspirational in bearing and dignity, intellectual complexity, physical beauty, grooming of hair, architecture, urban design, nature, technology, and power. It’s the perfect proof-of-concept case that global African audiences, as well as European and Asian audiences, are thrilled to see outstanding stories with complex thematic engagement about aspirational African heroes. So, I think that we should do more of that.
Minister Faust is an award-winning novelist, award-winning print journalist, radio host-producer, television host and associate producer, sketch comedy writer, video game writer, playwright, and poet. He is the author of The Alchemists of Kush and the Kindred Award-winning and Philip K. Dick runner-up Shrinking the Heroes. Minister Faust first achieved literary accolades for his debut novel, The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad, which was shortlisted for the Locus Best First Novel, Philip K. Dick, and Compton-Crook awards.
Muniyra Douglas holds a BA in English literature from the University of Toronto. She has previously published and presented on science fiction, Black cosplay, Afropunk culture, and much more. From Scarborough, she has been storytelling for over a decade, from spoken word to radio news to genre-bending work on post-colonialism, Black identities, womanhood, intersectionality, love, and mental wellness. Her Afro-futuristic animation film, The Glitch, was selected for the 2020 Toronto Short Film Festival and BSAM‘s online art exhibition.