Vox Populi Gallery presents Dante Foley's UPFRONT W/ BLACK PUNKS VOL. 1

Speaking truths

In 2025, after years working in the music industry and living in the broader punk scene, Foley decided to undertake this “social investigation” because they often saw their own story reflected in the stories of other Black punk artists, but they rarely saw these stories shared in popular media. They captured all the footage themself in the past year, traveling to meet artists in their home cities, including Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, and New York. Some musicians in the film Foley already knew from their experiences as a touring drummer, including with punk band Algiers and afrofuturist collective Mourning [A] BLKstar, while some musicians they had never met before they sat down to film the interview. Even artists they didn’t know felt ready to speak vulnerably because, Foley explains, in a community as fringe as Black punks “there are bound to be folks who are excited to talk about their story” and “hold a level of solidarity for one another.”

Speakers share about the pressures of making a living in music, feeling isolated in predominantly white spaces, and feeling like outsiders as punks among other Black folks, as well as navigating heavily cis male spaces as queer, trans, or femme artists and fans. Philadelphia musicians featured in the film include frontperson Tati Salazar from Commitment, drummer Adesola Ogunleye-Sowemimo from SOJI and Kulfi Girls, and bassist Colins “Bear” Regisford from Mannequin Pussy. Regisford especially helped Foley connect with other new folks to interview.

Foley made UPFRONT for “fellow Black weirdos” inside the punk music sphere and outside, including poets, comedians, other non-musicians, and any “strong voices who feel marginalized in a space that tells them to shrink themselves.” The project acknowledges that punks in the current scene come from different generations and have experienced “different access to historic spaces,” while a lot of younger folks “don’t know about the spaces that existed” before and don’t know how the older folks built their community. Ogunleye, who also helps organize the annual Break Free Fest featuring BIPOC punk artists from Philly and around the world, says watching Foley’s new film “gave me the same vibes I had the first time I watched Afropunk on DVD”—the influential 2003 documentary by James Spooner preceding the annual music festival of the same name.

The July 12 event will feature the Philadelphia premiere of UPFRONT W/ BLACK PUNKS VOL. 1, followed by a Q&A with Foley and Ogunleye. The organizers ask guests to pay on a sliding scale of $5-10, with no one turned away for lack of funds.

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