Dev Hynes, Negro Swan, and the collaborative Afrofuture?

In a recent review of Blood Orange (Dev Hynes’) Negro Swan, Judnick Maynard suggests that “His mastery and comfort extends to the way he welcomes collaborators.” Collaboration is a feature of R&B, of course, but reading Maynard’s review in light of Snead’s sense of repetition as having a communal possibility, and in light of your frustrations with Hegel, I wanted to raise a question about collaboration: could it be that Afrofuturism isn’t inherently collaborative, but must always be open to collaboration? Is that what sets T’Challa aside from Killmonger and allows for W’Kabi to be rehabilitated after his arguable betrayal of Wakanda? Is what I called Hegel’s status as “villain” in this course in relation to Black Panther in part a failure of collaborative will, not to mention his other egregious problems in the excerpt you read? As we continue on with our case studies, and as you look for Afrofuturist texts yourself, I encourage you to think about collaboration as a question, though not a definition, for Afrofuturism.