Mr. Soul!
Premiering in 1968, SOUL! was the first nationally broadcast all-Black variety show on public television, merging artists from the margins with post-Civil Rights Black radical thought. Visionary produ…
Mr. Soul!
Premiering in 1968, SOUL! was the first nationally broadcast all-Black variety show on public television, merging artists from the margins with post-Civil Rights Black radical thought. Visionary producer-turned-host Ellis Haizlip-openly gay and committed to charting new aesthetic territory-brought the avant-garde into the mainstream by foregrounding poetry and politics. Debuting icons like Patti LaBelle, Ashford & Simpson, Earth, Wind & Fire and Arsenio Hall alongside early legends such as Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Stevie Wonder and The Last Poets, Haizlip's keen ear for talent propelled a cultural shift so powerful it pushed Nixon into action. Tracking SOUL!'s evolution from local to national broadcast, the documentary presents what amounts to a biography of the path-breaking television series, woven together with biographical material from the life of Ellis Haizlip, whose expansive curatorial sensibility defined the series. A remarkable talent spotter, Haizlip introduced many soon-to-be iconic African American artists to a national audience. Even more important, it was Haizlip's singular contribution, derived from his own definition-defying life, to insist that the series embrace the full range of the African American experience: his series included gospel singers and Black Panthers, poets and jazz artists. Appearing at a transformative cultural moment, SOUL! helped re-define what it meant to be Black for a generation of African American viewers, while re-defining the white audience's view of Black culture as well. Questlove, Harry Belafonte, Nikki Giovanni, Stan Lathan, Kathleen Cleaver, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez and more reflect on this lost chapter of pop culture history and revisit their time on SOUL! With original music by Robert Glasper, take a deep dive into these unseen yet urgent archives and learn about Ellis Haizlip, the complex man and unsung hero who was behind the SOUL! of it all. Mr. SOUL! is not only a tribute to Haizlip for championing Black culture, but another reminder that the African-American experience still needs to be told now more than ever. Mr. Soul! won the Peabody ifor Best Documentary, 2022 and was nominated for the 2022 News & Documentary Emmy Awards, for Outstanding Achievement in a Craft in News and Documentary Programming - Sound Craft in News and Documentary Programming - Sound. The film is streaming on Max.
Mr. Soul!
Documentary
Film Details
Premiering in 1968, SOUL! was the first nationally broadcast all-Black variety show on public television, merging artists from the margins with post-Civil Rights Black radical thought. Visionary producer-turned-host Ellis Haizlip-openly gay and committed to charting new aesthetic territory-brought the avant-garde into the mainstream by foregrounding poetry and politics. Debuting icons like Patti LaBelle, Ashford & Simpson, Earth, Wind & Fire and Arsenio Hall alongside early legends such as Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Stevie Wonder and The Last Poets, Haizlip's keen ear for talent propelled a cultural shift so powerful it pushed Nixon into action.
Tracking SOUL!'s evolution from local to national broadcast, the documentary presents what amounts to a biography of the path-breaking television series, woven together with biographical material from the life of Ellis Haizlip, whose expansive curatorial sensibility defined the series. A remarkable talent spotter, Haizlip introduced many soon-to-be iconic African American artists to a national audience. Even more important, it was Haizlip's singular contribution, derived from his own definition-defying life, to insist that the series embrace the full range of the African American experience: his series included gospel singers and Black Panthers, poets and jazz artists.
Appearing at a transformative cultural moment, SOUL! helped re-define what it meant to be Black for a generation of African American viewers, while re-defining the white audience's view of Black culture as well. Questlove, Harry Belafonte, Nikki Giovanni, Stan Lathan, Kathleen Cleaver, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez and more reflect on this lost chapter of pop culture history and revisit their time on SOUL! With original music by Robert Glasper, take a deep dive into these unseen yet urgent archives and learn about Ellis Haizlip, the complex man and unsung hero who was behind the SOUL! of it all. Mr.
SOUL! is not only a tribute to Haizlip for championing Black culture, but another reminder that the African-American experience still needs to be told now more than ever. Mr. Soul! won the Peabody ifor Best Documentary, 2022 and was nominated for the 2022 News & Documentary Emmy Awards, for Outstanding Achievement in a Craft in News and Documentary Programming - Sound Craft in News and Documentary Programming - Sound.
The film is streaming on Max..