Mission Statement / Intro
Noirwave, created by musician Petite Noir and creative director RhaRha Nembhard in 2012, is a movement with its roots in music but its vision fixed firmly on the creative future. Responding to current cultural movements centred in Africa - arising against a backdrop of international anxieties concerning borders, nationhood and globalisation - Noirwave offers followers a citizenship which rejoices in freedom of movement, physically and creatively. Noirwave recognises identities developed across diverse experiences and cultures - but forged through a contemporary African flame. Nodding to the legacy of the Pan African movement - working to unite all people of African descent - Noirwave does not seek to rewrite the African narrative, but to offer a new one: one that represents the true contemporary experience across this great continent today, and beyond.
Manifesto
This is Noirwave.
This is it.
The vision of the mission:
Noirwave stands on the shoulders of diaspora, refugees and immigrants; it is a borderless philosophy for creative immigrants globally. We unapologetically abandon Western narratives, ensuring our global contemporaries recognize that a new time is here - a time of exodus, of departure: a movement, towards a new future for contemporary culture.
Giving name to the pre-existing voice of this generation, Noirwave offers an extra-national catalyst for change. ‘Noir’ represents the infinite space before us - creative alchemists, we recognise that blackness is not a void, but a neverending possibility to create. ‘Wave’ signals the energy and reach of this movement; it possess the power to instigate change, whilst respecting the transience of cultural, national and creative moments.
To follow Noirwave is to conform only to non-conformity: to build the world in your mind over and above the existing one laid out for you. Removing limits to expression, Noirwave knows no boundaries. Rebelling against a world preoccupied with borders, we find the musicality in cultural clashes.
Combining ancient and future knowledge systems, symbols, visuals and sounds, we create a new, all-encompassing identity. The Noirwave follower freely traverses time and space - a prerequisite of our own displaced legacies. Created for us, Noirwave rejoices in granting free movement to its creatives, a people whose concept of home is endless, inclusive, universal:
Noirwave is infinite
Noirwave is love
Lets take it to a new level!