Original Date: December 1, 2025
Ingoma, Sovereignty and Sonic Elsewheres: Reimagining Black Visuality through Feminist Frequencies
Drawing from the Zulu language as a form of epistemology, Zama Dube uses the word ingoma (music) as a form of Black diasporic poetics to highlight the important function of Black music in the films of the LA Rebellion. Building on her practice as a radio broadcaster and DJ, Zama Dube incorporates improvisational sound performance, film analysis and interactive sonic experiments to demonstrate how amapiano and Black cinema exemplify a diasporic “call and response” that resonates across time and media. Through discussion and live examples—from Amapiano rhythms to selected LA Rebellion films—the audience will engage with music as both a mode of scholarly inquiry and a performative, communal experience.
About Zama Dube
Zama Dube is a South African broadcaster, voice artist, and media scholar based in Los Angeles. She hosts The Witch’s Flight on dublab, a monthly radio show celebrating Afro-diasporic artistry through sound and conversation. Holding a Ph.D. in Cinema and Media Studies from UCLA, her research centers on Black feminist aesthetics, decolonial visual studies, and African diasporic cinema. Zama Dube is also an interdisciplinary creator whose sound performances—blending Amapiano, deep house, and poetic visuals—have featured at LACMA, the Hammer Museum, and the Fowler Museum. Her work bridges art, scholarship, and storytelling to imagine transformative futures rooted in Black feminist media praxis.