Ahmed Best

When we spoke to Ahmed Best in the lead up to his Long Now Talk, he asked us a question: “When you feel the future, how do you share that feeling in order to build community?”

Over the past quarter-century, Best — first as an actor, musician, and performer, and later as an Afrofuturist scholar and lecturer — has worked to answer that question. By bringing people together through electrifying performance and thought-provoking conversation, Best’s work has been able to make the future not just an abstract, intellectual consideration but something that can be felt in collective experience.

About Ahmed Best

While he first made his mark as a member of the cast of the award-winning percussion performance Stomp and as the first major CGI character actor in 01999 with his role as Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Best’s impact has stretched beyond just the world of film and theater. As a lecturer at the Stanford d.school and as one of the leaders of the AfroRithms Futures Group, Best has explored how to bring the ideas of Afrofuturism to life, using tools and methods as far-ranging as forecasting, collaborative design, and games. Drawing on his background as a dancer and musician, Best incorporates play and motion in order to help audiences grasp what Black futures may look like from a global perspective. 

Why This Talk Matters Now

Our work as long-term thinkers cannot succeed without considering the kaleidoscopic diversity of potential futures that Afrofuturism showcases. Best’s work exemplifies that potential, rousing us out of our routines and finding new creative pathways to understand and imagine the future. In his own thinking, Best draws on a diverse range of authors, citing the work of James Baldwin alongside that of legal scholar Andrea Freeman and historical novelist Amitav Ghosh to sketch out the connections between our past, our planet, and our futures. 

The Long View

Best hosts the Afrofuturist Podcast alongside Long Now Research Fellow Lonny J Avi Brooks. Brooks’ 02021 Long Now Talk When is Wakanda: Imagining Afrofutures explored the history of Afrofuturism, following its roots and different cultural manifestations and challenging dominant the narratives of futures and forecasting that have often excluded Black futurists and their insights. Best joined Brooks for the Q&A portion of his talk, contextualizing his role as Jar Jar Binks in the lineage of Afrofuturism and speaking on the need to change the “operating system” of society.  

For his own Long Now Talk, Best will be joined on stage in conversation with Long Now Board Member Lisa Kay Solomon. As a Futurist in Residence at the Stanford d.school, Solomon teaches classes like “Inventing the future” and “View from the future,” to help leaders and learners learn skills to anticipate and adapt to increasingly complex futures. Lisa recently joined the board of the Long Now Foundation, and is passionate about helping infusing futures thinking and practices into both classrooms and board rooms.

Where to Go Next

Ahmed Best recently sat down with Long Now to discuss interstellar travel, creativity, and the connection between sand divination and smartphones.

In 02024, Ahmed Best was profiled in the New York Times about his legacy as the first major CGI character actor and the impact Star Wars has had on his life. 

Watch Lonny J Avi Brooks’ Long Now Talk on imagining Afrofutures, featuring Ahmed Best in the Q&A.

Join us

Are you ready to fall in love with the future again? Join us In-person and Online for Ahmed Best’s Feel The Future: a Valentine’s evening of thought-provoking conversation, imagination, and performance on February 14th at 7 PM PT at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco.