(ThyBlackMan.com) This week my attention was once more drawn to the upcoming James Brown movie and it’s saga. Much was made of the sacking of Spike Lee late last year, but there was one aspect overlooked.
Lee had been on board with the project for years and had according to Eddie Murphy written “a great, great piece. I wish it could come together. It has everything and his story is incredible. Imagine how incredible Ray Charles’ story was — and he’s at the piano. James Brown is doing splits and running and jump off the wall. Angel dust. Shooting out tires. James’ shit is bananas.”
Sadly we will never get to see this “great piece” as Spike Lee has been replaced by movie director Tate Taylor. According to movie Producer Brian Grazer this was because new people came on board that year.
Now, one of the most important faces to step on board is a certain British singer and performer called Mick Jagger from a band called The Rolling Stones. As he is now co-producer and finances most of the project he has a lot of say so. Certainly according to Grazer “Mick is so amazing. For him to decide he’s going to participate and split half the money” – which makes it sound more like going to a restaurant and sharing a burger then making a movie, but hey.
This makes me wonder if the outspoken Lee might have got of on the wrong foot with the Rolling Stone and questioned his involvement in the movie.
The excuse Grazer gives for the sacking of Lee is certainly laughable: “The world was different then. Now you have to make movies for less money.” Considering most of Lee’s movies were either low budget or crowd funded if anyone could make it work for less money it was Spike Lee.
Naturally the black community was upset that once again a black icon had to be seen through white eyes in a movie. Especially when those eyes had directed the questionable “The Help” before (incidentally a story about a white woman trying to write the story of black folk, written by a white woman trying to write a story about black folk.) Why not have a true story about an Afro-American created and directed by an Afro-American.
A lot of black film director try to put films out, but they really can’t get out what they want unless they do a Tyler Perry. Robert Townsend, the Hundlin Brothers, Keenen Wayans, Bill Duke, Rusty Cundieff, ect are still around, they just can’t get what they want out in theatres. That’s why a lot of them do
straight to DVD’s now. Or they make YouTube pilots and hope crowd sourcing can get them to get a full series/movie. Something Spike Lee has done this month.
Grazer doesn’t think a black writer and director is necessary: “Mick and I don’t see the world that way. I started my career making Boomerang and CB4. I’ve made so many movies where I’ve supported black artists. Tate made The Help, and that had almost an entirely black population. I just want to try to make the best movie.” So a black director isn’t “the best”, then?
Are Grazer, Jagger and Taylor right for the movie? Time will tell. It is clear they will never understand the struggle Brown went through and leave out key moments that mean a lot to the black community. Sadly Jagger might be the worst producer for the movie, as he never understood the true struggle black artist had to go through.
Mick Jagger might have been a fan of James Brown (he was once scared to go onstage after Brown had performed before him) and love black music (judging from some playlists he gave to Rolling Stone he still does.) But after fifty years he still doesn’t doesn’t understand them or soul. He felt part of the blues scene, but never truly became part. These days he often performs with white artists who play Blues Stones style instead of original black performers.
This seems typical with a change in Mick Jagger’s attitude over the last few years. Him feeling as if he can “better” things done by black artists. Or maybe not even in the last few years. He always seemed to feel that he had made the black musicians which music he and the band played, as if he did them a charity covering the music that made the Stones famous. In 1964, Jagger wrote a snide letter to Melody Maker asserting that “These legendary characters wouldn’t mean a light commercially today if groups were not going round Britain doing their numbers.” I always liked the Rolling Stones when I was younger and was a Mick Jagger fan. Then my mother let me hear the originals and I realised that these were so much better.
The Stones might have introduced the world to the original black musicians at the start. But over the years the originals have faded away (pardon the pun) to the pint that even some American kids think that the Blues came from bands The Stones might have introduced the world to the original black musicians at the start but have become more silent about where their legacy comes from. So over the years the originals have faded away (pardon the pun) to the point that even some American kids think that the Blues came from bands like the Stones.
Bobby Womack has a big resentment towards Jagger and the Stones. While beat poet Leroi Jones once compared them to “Minstrels”.
Then there were the questionable moments: glorifying Slave rape in Brown Sugar, THAT line in “Some Girls”, the strange tribute song to Angela Davies that includes the line “Ten little niggers sittin’ on de wall”.
The fact that their black bass player Daryll Jones has never truly part of the band even though he’s been with them for 20 years. Giving his mixed raced daughter Jade “Jezebel” for a second name.
The bad treatment of his first daughter Karis with black singer and actress Marsha Hunt. He apparently wrote Brown Sugar for her – wouldn’t take it as a compliment.
The Stones’ music is dominated by the influence of black American music – but those very musicians have rarely been justly compensated for their innovations –. About their very first “self written” song Keith Richards wrote: “We didn’t find it difficult to write pop songs, but it was VERY difficult – and I think Mick will agree – to write one for the Stones. It seemed to us it took months and months and in the end we came up with The Last Time, which was basically re-adapting a traditional Gospel song that had been sung by the Staple Singers, but luckily the song itself goes back into the mists of time.” It was also influenced by James Brown’s “Maybe the Last Time” both songs even include the lyrics: “Maybe the Last Time, I don’t know”.
Many black artist said the Stones ripped of their songs, and when compared most of these songs were very similar indeed. The Stones never gave them any credits. Strangely In 1997, the Rolling Stones voluntarily credited k.d. lang and her writing partner Ben Mink on their song “Anybody Seen My Baby?”, after a representative of the group noticed a resemblance to lang’s 1992 hit single, “Constant Craving.”
Time will tell how the movie turns out. As for Mick and the Stones as MOS DEF sang:
“ Guess that’s just the way shit goes
You steal my clothes and try to say they yo’s (yes they do)
Cause it’s a show filled with pimps and hoes
Tryin to take everything that you made or control (there they go)
Elvis Presley ain’t got no SOULLLL
Bo Diddley is rock and roll (damn right)
You may dig on the Rolling Stones
But they ain’t the first place the credit belongs”
Staff Writer; Dannii Cohen
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