A few weeks ago I was musing among friends a question about superheroes and race. It went something like "why couldn't a major superhero be black, hispanic, asian or anything else?" My thinking was that the race of said superhero is sort of irrelevant anyway in most cases and wouldn't it be sorta cool if a superhero got a total reboot? It would be a shocker to find out Daredevil was black or Spiderman was Japanese, but I don't think it would be a deal-breaker for any but the diehard comic fans and even they might find it in their hearts to see a revision that might actually give these largely two-dimensional characters a bit more cultural depth. Might also help a sagging franchise get better and be relevant to a whole bunch of different people.
That said, as I was trolling around the internet today, I got a report that one of my favorite contemporary Nigerian artists, Keziah Jones, is set to drop a new album in November and guess who he plays? That's right, a superhero. Captain Rugged is the name of said hero and the album is set to be titles Afronewave. And though we are not familiar with the powers, history or exploits of this African superhero, he will be accompanied with an actual graphic novel that runs parallel to the album. Pretty cool for a concept album... and though I don't have the single, I do have a snippet in video here.
And then there was the song I played for y'all at 11am, perhaps not about this new superhero, but a cover of a band that has power beyond the norm...U2. That's right, a cover of a superstar group, which will do...