Five Black creators took the stage at the David Rubenstein Atrium on Feb. 12 for a panel discussion and series of performances exploring the intersection of art and technology. The panelists were: digital designer Akil Cooper; multi-disciplinary artist Cleo Reed; experimental musician Kambaba Jasper; artist and producer Akeem; and the comedian Willonius “King Willonius” Hatcher.

“The Future in the Now: Young African-American Creators,” presented by Lincoln Center, is the latest in an ongoing event series titled “The InBETWEEN Music & Tech” fronted by the musical icon, activist and educator Nona Hendryx. 

Admission for “The Future in the Now” was free, offered as part of this season’s low or no-cost public programming. Fordham students were invited to attend via Lincoln Center’s connection to the university’s Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL). 

Following an introduction by Hendryx, Cooper kicked off the event with a presentation about his work as the founder of Triber Cooperative. The 26-year-old’s background is in computer information systems and user interface and user experience (UI/UX) design. He spoke about using technology to amplify new perspectives.

I never thought of these components of my practice as separate. I think of finger style as a form of technology,” Reed said, referring to the guitar-playing technique common in folk and blues music.

“I was so used to technology being a thing that was mostly done by people who don’t look like me,” Cooper said. “I started getting interested in different experiences and immersive exhibitions that showed that technology could be a little different.”

Early on, Cooper found his stride as a coder by drawing on stories of the past. One project merged garment design with archival research, in which a t-shirt graphic referencing Fire!! Magazine, the Harlem Renaissance-era literary outpost, could be scanned to view a digital version of the publication. 

Cooper’s examples spoke to the evening’s presiding theme: Afrofuturism. 

The author and scholar Ytasha Womack described Afrofuturism as “a way of looking at the future and alternate realities through a Black cultural lens.” It is a framework of imagination that has been applied across different creative disciplines, including music, literature, art and filmmaking. 

The panel fielded questions from Hendryx about Afrofuturist ideas in their respective ventures. While the speakers’ immediate relevance to one another did not always seem entirely clear, they voiced general consensus about the power of technology to reflect on the past and chart the future for Black creatives.

“Improvisation is the root of the Black music tradition that I always try to uphold … I like to have fun, I like hearing sounds. I think that’s what technology allows me to do. It allows me to surprise myself Kambaba Jasper, musician

When asked about navigating the tension between traditional crafts and experimental digital spaces, Reed expressed a holistic outlook.

“I never thought of these components of my practice as separate. I think of finger style as a form of technology,” Reed said, referring to the guitar-playing technique common in folk and blues music. “I still feel my technological mind moving, even as I’m learning traditions.”

Jasper expressed a similarly convergent view of past and future in the context of musical improvisation. Quoting the composer Laurie Spiegel, Jasper said that “technology functions to expand human intuition, and not to replace it.”

“Improvisation is the root of the Black music tradition that I always try to uphold … I like to have fun, I like hearing sounds. I think that’s what technology allows me to do. It allows me to surprise myself,” Jasper said.

The wildcard of the night was Hatcher, known by his stage name “King Willonious,” who is known for producing — or rather, generating — the viral artificial intelligence (AI) generated song “BBL Drizzy,” a fake-vintage Motown earworm poking fun at Drake. The song’s success landed Hatcher on Time Magazine’s Top 100 AI Innovators in 2024 and prompted further expansion of what he called the “BBL Drizzyverse.” 

quote…Jasper’s set transported the audience to a new sonic dimension, layering electronic textures with soaring, reverberant vocals.

The audience got a taste of this fledgling enterprise with a viewing of Hatcher’s AI-generated short film, “Enter the BBL Drizzyverse,” made in partnership with Adobe Firefly. The plot follows a warrior-princess character named Fatima who must defeat enemy “Opps” and protect her nation’s “sacred Clout Fields.”

While not particularly evocative of the song it came from, the film is a feat of AI animation. According to Hatcher, it took just a week to make. But is expediency the goal when it comes to art? 

The audience seemed to be stumped on Hatcher. It wasn’t that his efforts were insincere, but that they yielded something uncanny, farcical and artistically questionable — an undeniable challenge to notions of integrity and slow intention that the other panelists raised. If anything, Hatcher’s presence sent a message: Irreverence is probably more helpful to futurists than we would like to believe.

The event closed out with musical performances by Akeem, Jasper and Reed. Akeem’s opening set had the crowd bopping their heads to melodic hip-hop tracks influenced by the musical soundscape of Chicago’s Northside. A veteran performer, the Nigerian-American artist sang and rapped with breezy confidence.

Jasper’s set transported the audience to a new sonic dimension, layering electronic textures with soaring, reverberant vocals. An accompanying visual showed a live camera angle of Jasper at work, altered to be overly saturated and pixelated, which morphed on screen in successive phases of distortion. It felt like Jasper wanted their witnesses to atomize with them, to trust them enough to leave reality together. Yet their lyrics avouched the limits of the human condition, at one point confessing, “I have a lot of dreams where I’m flying / No wings, just flesh.”

The last to take the stage was Reed, who performed a medley that included songs from their 2025 album “Cuntry.” Reed’s voice rang out as clear as a bell over their gentle guitar strumming. They used a soundboard to play an AI voice speaking at several moments. In clipped sentences, the voice seemed to emphasize its own disembodiment in the context of Reed’s stirring acoustic performance.

The last song of the night was an unreleased one about rubber, which Reed introduced as a metaphor for Black resilience.

“I’m built to last, I’m Black for life / I’ll bend, I’ll never be broken,” Reed sang, later echoed onstage by the other panelists and Hendryx during an impromptu sing-along. 

As a satellite venue for Lincoln Center, the David Rubenstein Atrium is distinct from the more imposing theaters across the street. With its open design, LED mood lighting and café-bar area, it has the makings of an upscale community space with just the right proportions for an event like this. Yet, something about the atrium remains unconvincing as a place to commune or be entertained. Perhaps it was the three glass-door exits, or the way ambient noise refracted around the tunnel-like room, but the room’s feng shui promoted an imbalance that Hendryx and the impressive guests could only do so much to abate. 

All said, intellectually enriching conversations like this one are being offered every week for free, just a street over from campus. Students can visit Lincoln Center’s 2025–26 programming calendar to discover upcoming events.