At (de)cypher, dark decipherment is the heretical practice we deploy to approach the critical study of black art to ultimately restore spirit back to the practice of Black Criticism in the tradition of the Black Arts Movement. In 1968, Larry Neal wrote that “Black Art is the aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept.” With no contemporary ideal carrying the same political clarity or unifying force as Black Power, what is left of Black Art besides vibes, empty signifying, and grant proposals? 

In a moment where Black Art is freed from any ethical commitments, practitioners find themselves at an existential crossroads—strangled by diamond-studded chains and streaked in the colors of empire. At such a cultural conjuncture—which is both a radical opening and stifling closure—what do we consider to be the function of Black Criticism? at (de)cypher, we think that means exploring the dark.

When we say dark we mean it in the way Saul Williams and D’Angelo did when, in the liner notes to the genre-defying incantation called Voodoo, they offered: “We speak of darkness, not as ignorance, but as the unknown and the mysterious of the unseen.” When we speak of darkness we mean the place from where all that currently is first emerged, and will ultimately return like ashes to dust. We mean a deeply feminine force Williams and D’Angelo demanded we nurture with all our “he-arts.” 

Only by allowing ourselves to dance in and with the dark can we imagine radical choreographies that sample those left by ancestors like prized yet repressed heirlooms. At (de)cypher, we approach this task of cultural rootwork with our own incantation. Rather than a statement, we ask a meta-question of the intellect and affect, the mind and body, the flesh and spirit: what do you think about how it feels? this is a critical-spiritual-poetic practice of endless questioning, a journey into an abyssal darkness with no end in sight.

and after we ask for clarity, we cast our hand and record how the chips fall as we descend into the shadow of a question with no certain answer…