Sweet and Dandy is an 8-week film series featuring an entertaining mix of documentaries, shorts and narratives complementing both exhibitions on view at Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) The Grace Jones Project and Dandy Lion: (Re)Articulating Black Masculine Identity. The films explore how fashion, music and performance are expressions of resistance and pleasure, defying confining interpretations of race and masculinity/femininity in global Black communities.

HI-DE-HO (10 minutes, 1934, Fred Waller) – A musical short starring Cab Calloway, the musician who popularized the zoot suit.

This is followed by THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ELEGANT (74 minutes, 2005, George Amponsah. In Lingala and French with English subtitles). Set to the soundtrack of Congo's irresistible soukous music and its leading star, Papa Wemba, we become steeped in the fashion style of the sapeurs from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Despite extreme economic hardships the sapeurs will only settle for the clothes of Roberto Cavalli, Yohji Yamamoto, Versace, Issey Miyake and Burberry. We follow Papa Wemba after his release from prison, while he records a new album and prepares for a huge concert in Paris.

Purchase advance tickets here