‘BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions’ Review: Kahlil Joseph’s Feature Debut Is a Kinetic Tribute to Black Experimentalists

Before his death in 1963, the scholar W.E.B. DuBois spent decades trying to publish an encyclopedia about the histories and cultures of people of African descent. He enlisted friends, petitioned colleagues and sought funding for the multi-volume project from government agencies and private donors. Despite his best efforts, DuBois’ vision wouldn’t be realized until 1999, when Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Kwame Anthony Appiah, with the help of Wole Soyinka and a global community of artists and scholars, published Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience.

The mission of DuBois’ project — to offer a new generation access to information about Black people rivaling Encyclopedia Britannica — infuses Kahlil Joseph’s hypnotic debut feature BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions, a kinetic blend of a fictional Afro-futurist narrative, archival research on decades of Black visual and multimedia work, and personal history.

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'BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions' Review: Kahlil Joseph's Kinetic Debut