Film honours legendary black icon James Brown

There are two outstanding African American cultural icons from the 1960s and 70s, boxer Mohammed Ali and musician James Brown.

While Ali’s status as heavyweight-boxing champion of the world was a powerful symbol for black people everywhere, Brown used his music to make being black a source of pride during an era of deep colour segregation. 

The similarities between Ali and Brown are striking: both were flamboyant, fast-talking, confident, even brash characters. When Hollywood made the feature film “Ali” in 2001, the lead role was played by Will Smith. 

James Brown, the self-styled Godfather of Soul died on Christmas Day in 2006 at age 73 and now almost eight years after his death, the movie “Move on Up: The Story of James Brown” has just opened at cinemas in the U.S and Europe.

Starring Chadwick Boseman in the lead role and directed by Tate Taylor, the film is produced by rock star Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones.

Outlandish suits

With the trademark huge mop of hair and outlandish suits, James Brown was the original showman and long before Michael Jackson did the Moonwalk, JB, as he was known, was gliding across the stage, shrieking to dance routines which he gave names like the Mashed Potato and Popcorn.

He remains one of the most influential figures in popular music with his records widely sampled in all genres, from rock to hip-hop.

Director Tate Taylor combines the story of James Brown the superstar with elements of a troubled childhood, an abusive father and a mother who abandons the family while he is still a little boy.

As a teenager, the delinquent James Brown is jailed for stealing a suit and it is in prison where his life as a performer is shaped as he watches Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis) and the Gospel Starlighters, the quintet that eventually becomes the Famous Flames.

The chapters in the 2-hour story are cleverly named after titles of records and the various monikers by which James Brown called himself: Mr. Dynamite, The Godfather of Soul, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business and Minister of the New Super heavy Funk.

22-piece orchestra

A meeting with Little Richard (Brandon Smith), who was also a dazzling showman, leads to the recording of a demo tape and a contract with Federal Records.

It becomes clear who the boss of the group is when that first single “Please, Please Me” is released in 1956, bearing the name James Brown with the Famous Flames.

His political influence is dramatised very early in the film as he meets President Lyndon Johnson before heading off to Vietnam “to perform super heavy funk” with his 22-piece orchestra for US soldiers during the war.

24 hours after the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, James Brown had to grapple with the Mayor of Boston to salvage his concert in a city with troubled race relations.

As we see in the film, amid the tense mood in America, Brown succeeded in bringing the nation back from the brink in an immortal performance.

“Say it loud, I am Black and Proud” is the song that made the political establishment sit up and take notice of James Brown. As a pioneer rapper, Chuck D says, the fact that mayors, politicians, the military and presidents reached out to James Brown, while pop stations and the musical mainstream cut him off, is a piece of mind boggling irony.

Lead actor Boseman puts in a very solid portrayal of a swaggering and self-promoting star who liked to refer to himself in the third person.

Like in an early scene where he tells a jittery military officer welcoming him to Vietnam: “the first rule of James Brown is he don’t tell no man his business….don’t tell me when, how or for how long I can be funky!”

Dan Aykroyd plays Ben Bart, president of the agency that represented Brown for four decades while singer Angie Stone is Dee Dee Brown, the singer’s second wife. Stone was so good during the auditions that the role, which was not on the original script, was quickly added.

The film’s score packs a punch with classics like “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” “It’s a Man’s World” and “Get on up (Sex Machine)” all remixed from the original recordings.

It’s a shame that this film will not be screened at Kenyan cinemas soon. A representative at Century Cinema at the Junction in Nairobi says the film is not on their schedule for the rest of the year.

Musical biopics like the recent Marley, he says, have been box office flops in Kenya and so distributors are not keen on obtaining this genre.

The only consolation is that films are now released fairly quickly into DVD and Blu Ray formats and it may not be too long before you can own your own copy of this story of a remarkable figure of the 20th century.

This article was first published in the Business Daily