MF GALAXY

LISTEN/DOWNLOAD This is Black Panther Month on MF GALAXY and with all the excitement surging about the Marvel movie about the Wakanda super-genius, superhero, super-fighter, the time is right to go beyond fictional African martials arts and discover authentic, deadly African martial arts from across the continent and across history. Most people in the West think of the phrase “martial arts” as referring to East Asian fighting systems such as kung fu, karate, and tae kwon do, without realising that “martial arts” means any combat system. And certainly every culture in the world produced its own combat systems or its people would have been assimilated or annihilated. So it really should not be a surprise that the African continent, home to humanity and birthplace of civilisation, should have scores of martials arts, ranging from the wrestling, sword systems, and stick fighting of Ancient Egypt, to the range of West African fighting arts, and that’s where we begin to...

INDIE PUBLISHING BUSINESS SKILLS + ATTITUDES, EMULATION, DON’T OVERSTRESS GENRE, HOW TO ACT AT BOOK SHOWS, AND WHY YOU NEED TO ORGANISE YOUR OWN EVENTS, AND WHERE YOU SHOULD BE DOING IT On his website, Milton Davis describes himself professionally as being a “full time chemist and a part time writer.” But I’d say he’s full-time both. Like any chemist, Davis is focused on creation, synthesis, reaction, and results. Theory’s not enough. Experimentation and production are the whole point. Milton Davis writes Africentric science fiction, and also sword & soul, the Africentric answer to the Eurocentric fantasy subgenre sword & sorcery. He’s best known for his novel Meji, and he’s also a pioneer in the genre called steamfunk, the Africentric response to the unquestioned Eurocentric imperialism of steampunk. Davis is also an independent publisher and the founder of MVMedia, an Atlanta-based company that publishes his work, novels by Balogun Ojetade, and anthologies ...