PHILOSOPHICAL & SOCIO-HISTORICAL

The concept answers two reductions at once. Against the thesis of “invented traditions”, it shows that the Black combat arts are not recent fabrications draped in false antiquity: what they hand down is old, continuous and documented — but what they hand down is a grammar of invention, not a catalogue of fixed forms. And against the externalisation of Black agency — the habit of explaining every innovation by an outside influence — it restores the obvious: the improvisation prized in the roda, the lawonn or the arena is itself the tradition, cultivated, taught and rewarded from within. A player is faithful to these arts not by repeating, but by creating according to their rules. The tradition is the innovation.

IN THE SYSTEM

→ Black Creolisation — Cultural objects produced by a double process of creolisation — original and continuous — whose identity is Black.

→ Réexistence — Beyond resisting and enduring: to exist anew, on one's own terms.

IN THE CORPUS

→ Black Combat Arts: What They Are

HOW TO CITE THIS CONCEPT

MALO, Olivier. Tradition of Innovation. In: Black Combat Arts Institute — Concepts [online]. 2026. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/concepts-en/tradition-of-innovation [accessed date].