Afropunk founder James Spooner rereleases his Afro-Punk documentary

Afropunk founder James Spooner has remastered and rereleased his 2003 documentary Afro-Punk, pairing it with a new memoir, It Starts With Anger, after a years-long legal battle to reclaim the rights to his own film.

Spooner made Afro-Punk almost entirely himself, shooting, producing, directing and editing the documentary as he traveled the country interviewing Black artists, musicians and fans about their experiences in punk rock and alternative scenes that are overwhelmingly white. The film opens by confronting a racially charged Patti Smith song title, a moment Spooner has said pushed him to make the movie in the first place.

The rerelease follows a Kickstarter campaign Spooner ran to fund the remaster, and its arrival is tied to screenings in Los Angeles and New York, including a Sunday screening and book talk at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles with former S.O.A. and Black Flag vocalist Henry Rollins.

Spooner regained the rights to Afro-Punk after a contentious legal fight with his former business partner, Matthew Morgan, and Essence Ventures, which had acquired the Afropunk brand and, by the film's own account, steered it away from Spooner's original punk-scene focus. Spooner sued Morgan and Essence Ventures in 2020 and settled in 2025, recovering the film's rights.

"It's wild to me that I made something when I was 25 that people still care about," Spooner said, describing hopes that the documentary keeps reaching new audiences. The film, he added, still needs a distributor even as it returns to theaters this month.