Afrocentric.

In this visionary Afrocentric freestyle, we explore what it means to truly rise—spiritually, culturally, and consciously. From the morning greeting “Grand Rising” to cosmic ascension, the episode traces the sacred language of awakening through the Bible, African cosmology, Indigenous prophecy, and modern thought. We unpack how a simple phrase transforms into a declaration of power—how rising replaces mourning—and how this language of light fuels liberation and gratitude in Black spiritual and wellness spaces. From the 144,000 in Revelation to the Rainbow Warriors of Native tradition, we uncover a shared vision of a remnant people awakening to lift humanity into a new spiritual era. Drawing from biblical prophecy and African memory, we invoke the “Sleeping Giants”—symbols of oppressed peoples reawakening to their divine heritage as builders of a renewed world. The journey moves through the Emerald City and Rainbow Bridge, merging myth and mysticism into a vision of heaven and earth made one. Grounded in science and spirit, we explore epigenetics as ancestral remembrance written in our blood—a bridge between lineage, trauma, and divine DNA. Finally, through an Afrofuturist lens, we see prophecy fulfilled: Black creativity, spirituality, and science converging to reveal our latent godhood. “The Grandest Rising of All Time” calls listeners to remember who they are—living bridges between earth and heaven, carrying ancestral light into a new creation.

Morgan Gray takes listeners aboard the infamous Jesus of Lübeck, tracing its transformation from a European warship built for monarchs and merchants to one of the earliest vessels in the Atlantic slave trade. Once a symbol of naval power, the ship became a floating prison—its decks witnessing the violent convergence of commerce, conquest, and human suffering. Through vivid storytelling, the episode explores the ship’s ties to royal ambition and mercantile greed, mapping its perilous voyages that linked Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Morgan unpacks the potent symbolism of the Jesus of Lübeck, reimagining it as a distorted kind of “ark”—a vessel that carried not salvation, but the foundations of slavery and empire. Expanding the lens to a global scale, the narrative positions the ship as both artifact and omen: a maritime emblem of Christian imperialism whose routes and logic would seed centuries of exploitation. By confronting its history, the episode challenges the myths that sanctified empire while obscuring the human cost at its core.

This freestyle episode of The Afrocentric Podcast dives deep into a grim but often hidden history — the literal and symbolic consumption of Black bodies throughout American history. From the era when enslaved Africans were treated as commodities to the disturbing cases of human consumption in early America, this episode retraces how anti-Black cannibalism took many forms — physical, spiritual, and economic. We explore the ways Black flesh and identity were objectified: from the “alligator bait” atrocities and furniture stuffed with African hair to the grotesque relics made from human skin. We’ll recall figures like Nat Turner and reframe acts of rebellion and retribution in light of this system of consumption. Finally, the episode bridges past and present, questioning whether the appetite for Black life continues today — in the commodification of “melanin,” the fetishization of Black culture, and the haunting rise in missing Black children that rarely make national headlines. This episode challenges listeners to confront the question: has the consumption of Black humanity ever truly stopped — or has it just evolved?