Last year, the world bid farewell to the Black Southern icon D’Angelo, a true one of one, and a creative force who revolutionized music, and Black aesthetic practice. On the anniversary of his ancestral transition, zuri arman (@darkdecypher) commemorates D’Angelo and his artistry in this multi-genre de/cypher, covering Southern hoodoo practice, the politics of Black spiritual revolution, and the profound South to South connections between the Black anarchic spiritual practices of African conjurers marooned in the Carolinas, Brazil, and Cuba. Meditating on the role of spiritual warfare in the works of Black Liberation Army and Black Panther Party veterans Ashanti Alston (@m.ashantialston) and ancestor Safiya Bukhari they write: “Five Augusts after being informally introduced to Ashanti by Safiya, a number representing divine transformation, Ashanti’s book Anarchist Panther has officially entered the world. I remember having Ashanti’s over at my house, with D’Angelo playing in the background much to his delight, and listening to Ashanti fret over what I had no doubt would be a masterful and essential contribution to the anarchist canon. This Black August, Anarchist Panther served as my self-assigned reading along with The Book of Juju: Africana Spirituality for Healing, Liberation, and Self-Discovery by Juju Bae, (@itsjujubae) an Oshun priestess, hoodoo practitioner, and former organizer. After a summer spent in Salvador, Brazil, having mundane encounters with ancestors, caboclos, and Orisha alike, I returned to the U.S. trying to understand both how my metaphysical life force, or ashe, worked and how it could be harnessed and wielded amid our rapid declension into the bolder-faced fascism George Jackson warned us was waiting to be activated behind the shroud of liberalism. The “democratic fascism” of U.S. governance, as another BLA veteran Dhoruba Bin Wahad calls it, operates like the seven of cups card in tarot: it casts illusions about what hides behind the veil of the voting booth or is summoned by the ritual of casting a ballot.” Check out the full piece available now at scalawagmagazine.org