Black Fire: The Blueprint Before the Blueprint
- J Plunky Branch
- 4 hours ago
- 1 min read
Before streaming. Before playlists. Before “independent” became a marketing category.
There was Black Fire Records.
In the mid-1970s, in Washington, DC, Jimmy Gray and I founded Black Fire to create space for music that didn’t fit the industry’s narrow boxes. We weren’t trying to chase trends—we were trying to tell the truth. About our lives. Our communities. Our future.
The Black Fire Documentary is more than a film about a label. It’s a window into a moment when artists, activists, radio personalities, and organizers came together to build something independent, intentional, and uncompromising.
This 28-minute short film traces the roots of a movement that helped shape:
Independent jazz
Progressive Black music
The business models artists use today
The cultural DNA behind hip-hop, DJ culture, and Afrofuturism
Black Fire wasn’t just about records. It was about ownership. Voice. Control of narrative.
And that spirit is the same spirit behind what we’re building now with the Vision Channel and One Mind.
This film is here to remind us:We’ve been building our own institutions for generations. Now we’re just doing it with new tools.
Watch it. Study it.Then ask yourself:What are you building that will still matter 50 years from now?
Plunky Branch
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