Do Or Die: Using Art To Resist Stereotypes Of Black Masculinity

'Artist Fahamu Pecou has been wrestling with stereotypes of black masculinity for his entire life. No matter how many degrees he earned or what job he had, he had the sense that he was only seen as a black body.  He has always used art as a way to push back, but for a long time he did not touch one particularly charged topic: police-involved shootings of black men. That changed in 2015, after a police officer shot and killed Walter Scott, a black man in Charleston. Pecou started work on a series called "Do or Die: Affect, Ritual, Resistance." It debuted in 2016, and since then it has traveled around the country. Pecou incorporates the rituals of the West African Yoruba religion of Ifa into his work, like the ancestor honoring ceremony known as the egungun tradition. Host Frank Stasio talks to Pecou about his inspiration, creative process and how audiences have reacted to the exhibition. “DO or DIE: Affect, Ritual, Resistance” is on display at The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at UNC-Chapel Hill until Nov. 21.'