BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions

This was real special. I'm glad I could bring you for it. Okay?

Say your name.

And look at what is present here today.

In this hallway, we sense temporal entanglement

and recursion.

Stop it!

The overlapping and intimate lives

of the residents of the tenement...

...and of all those who will reside in its future.

In the 1960s and 1970s...

...there began a movement

known as land art,

where an artist would incorporate land and landscapes

as part of their work of art.

Rooted in a desire to make art, not commerce,

land art was often colossal yet simple,

also known as Earth Works.

It expanded the boundaries of the form

by using commonplace materials

such as soil, rocks, vegetation, and water.

The sites are usually difficult to reach,

requiring commitment from visitors

to experience their potency.

There's a section in the middle of the Atlantic

covering 300 square miles, dubbed the Resonance Field.

Excuse me, can you turn up the radio, please?

Excuse me, can you actually turn it down now?

I have a phone call.

Hello?

Hey, what's up?

No shit.

I just got back home.

I was on the Nautica.

I gotta write this article

about the Trans Atlantic Biennale.

I'll tell you all about it.

But I'm tired as fuck, girl. Let me call you in the morning.

I'm sorry. Can you turn it up again?

This is the last time, I promise.

Huh?

- Set. - Oh.

- You guys ready? - Yep.

Okay. And whenever you guys are ready.

This is BLK... Sorry.

This is BLKNWS. I'm Alzo Slade.

Tonight, I bring you...

...a man who all of us really want to know.

It doesn't get bigger than this tonight.

Yes, Anas. I've heard of Anas.

He's one of the finest journalists

we have in this country.

He investigates.

And he tries to bring out the truth.

People of Ghana have worked hard, like Anas,

who risked his life to report the truth.

...who disguised himself.

It doesn't get bigger than this tonight.

Welcome back to BLKNWS.

My guest today is Africa's most famous

investigative journalist.

Anas Aremeyaw Anas' extraordinary,

deep undercover work

regularly exposes

high-level corruption.

Very few people know what you look like.

Now, your disguise is often beads that cover your face.

- Correct. -Even when you're reporting on camera,

you always keep your face hidden. Why?

The nature of the work and the security implications

that come along with it

so that I would have the capacity

to tell another story tomorrow.

My journalism is people-centered.

And that's what I do.

We've done prosthetics on a number of occasions

where you would be an old man.

There are investigations that I've done,

that I'm a complete woman.

I've made good use of makeup artists,

and that enables us to change dramatically

from one shape to the other.

And recently, there's been word

of your involvement in reacquiring

a quite famous African artifact

known as the Benin Mask.

What can you tell us about this?

Well, I cannot confirm any involvement at this time,

but I can tell you a story.

In 1977, the renowned poet Nobel Laureate,

Wole Soyinka...

He attempted to steal the original Benin Mask

ahead of the Festac, Festival of Arts and Culture,

which was using a replica of the mask

as the official emblem.

Wole managed to get a private escort

to the secret room where the mask was being held,

and he managed to walk away with the mask

hidden under his jacket.

Only later to discover the mask was also a replica.

Now, what I do know,

what I can confirm from my sources, of course,

is that this mask that has gone missing

from the British Museum is no replica.

My name is Omar.

Ooh.

Senegal, Dakar...

Have you tried the rum?

- Not bad. - Mmm.

-I'm Shayla, by the way. -Omar.

How long have you been working on Nautica?

I've been working on the ship for two years now.

- Two years? - Yes, it's two years.

Where are you from?

Dakar. You ask a lot of questions.

Sorry, sort of my job.

I'm a journalist.

What kind of reporting do you do?

Mostly arts and culture.

But lately, I've been doing a lot of... profiles.

I just covered the dethroning of the British Royal Family.

This was the moment Britain had been waiting for,

and they packed the pubs.

Millions of televisions in millions of homes

were tuned in.

Wild.

Back at it again at Krispy Kreme.

- Sarah. - Who is Chaka Khan?

No.

-And that's on BLKNWS. -And that's on BLKNWS.

Dive into this world of different colors.

And I saw the world in a different way.

And so I see things that other people do not.

How do you get there?

...everybody is kicking up?

The only way out is in.

Breathe.

You got your lunch in that box?

Nope, not my lunch.

I got my books. You wanna see?

Books? Yeah. Okay.

The Souls of Black Folk.

I read that, too. Where'd you get that?

From Miss Andrews, my teacher.

I didn't read all of it yet, but I plan to.

Got time.

what one finds

is the incompleteness of the archive.

confronts the necessity

of-- of supplementing the historical record...

...which is often

not just incomplete but-- but repressive.

The record is replete with all these words

that don't correspond to the situation.

Go!

The story of the Nautica begins

with Jonah Wells,

the best-kept secret in the Mississippi steamboat industry.

He earned the name by designing an auger

that halved the time it took to dig a well in 1792.

Over the next several years, his master, John A. Quitman,

maintained a healthy side business loaning Jonah out

to his Natchez, Mississippi, neighbors.

One day, Quitman received a visit from a boatman

raving about how Wells' suggestions

had significantly improved his steamboat's

power-to-weight ratio.

Though unlettered, Jonah's engineering genius

extended far beyond well-digging.

And on that night in 1809...

...the Mississippi River Boat Company was born.

And for the next 100 years,

the Wells family knack was at its heart.

Ibrahim Chester Wells

joined this proud, yet shrouded, legacy

on April 25, 1895,

from the shop floor of the MRC.

Wells' world was disrupted in 1917

when Woodrow Wilson declared the United States' entry

into World War I.

And Ibrahim, then 22, enlisted in the Navy.

After the war, Ibrahim stayed in Washington, DC,

and enrolled in Howard University