ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the figure of the Afrobeat Queen has inspired Black women artists to perform by imitation, as well as how specific performances by Black women forge an alternative, emergent Black Diaspora. It suggests that the aesthetic and affective connection between the figure of the Queen, as in the case of Seun Kuti's dancing women, and women in the Black Diaspora provides a basis for imagining a "Black" feminist Diaspora. The chapter demonstrates that the Queen's erotic power as well as her susceptibility to patriarchal violence imbues her with an affective power to take flight between women's bodies across time and space. It argues that the Afrobeat Queen, a figure imagined as victim in Nigeria, has been imagined as a symbol of strength and beauty in a Black diasporic context. The chapter examines the works of three artists to discuss how they interpret the Queen as a figure of the Black Diaspora.
