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Soul Power: Zaire '74

"When you bad," boasts the young, beautiful, piss-and-vinegar-filled Muhammad Ali early in the documentary Soul Power, "you can do what you wanna do." The film, which takes too long to get to the meat of its matter, but captivates once it does, is an addendum to Leon Gast's Oscar-winning 1996 documentary When We Were Kings. Ali's bravado-soaked words, breezily tossed off after he disrupts a Don King press conference, also serve as an artist's manifesto for the film's musical acts: Celia Cruz, the Spinners, Fania All-Stars, Bill Withers, B.B. King, Miriam Makeba, and others.

Culled by director Jeffrey Levy-Hinte from the 125 hours of footage shot by Paul Goldsmith, Kevin Keating, Roderick Young, and Albert Maysles and relegated to the vaults after Gast didn't use it in Kings, Soul Power documents the three-day music festival that accompanied the iconic 1974 Muhammad Ali/George Foreman "Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match in Zaire. The concerts, meant to be a cultural exchange between African and African-American musicians (the late, great Cruz fiercely reps Cuba in a movie-stealing number), were briefly imperiled after a Foreman eye injury forced a postponement of the fight. When finally mounted, the shows became the stuff of pop culture folklore. Given the power of many of the performances, and the dreary state of modern Black pop, Soul Power itself might well be subtitled When We Were Kings.

The film begins with lovely, if clichéd, day-in-the-life shots of ordinary Africans (a young mother strapping her two babies to her body before starting a trek down a dirt road; a boisterous street bazaar), as well as press-conference and travel footage of the artists; a mid-air jam session, in which a member of Cruz's band improvises a Pepsi can as an instrument while Cruz keeps time by pounding the heel of her shoe against the overhead compartment, is especially cool. But this first act is largely padding, bogged down in the tedious chronicling of assorted logistical nightmares that accompany such an undertaking.

The irony is that headliner James Brown is one of the least impressive of the performers. He's wonderful, but familiar. Much badder is Cruz and her sprawling, sexily raucous band; Bill Withers, with his sparse and aching acoustic performance of "She's Gone" (an especially brave choice of song given that most acts focused on mid- to uptempo numbers to rouse the crowd); and Miriam Makeba's "Click Song," introduced with a vigorous assertion of cultural pride ("It's not a noise, but my native tongue.")

Infusing these performances with a political heft that resonates across eras is a press conference at which Ali dismantles a white reporter's utopian race rhetoric. With nationalistic counter-attack, Ali calls out entertainers and athletes who don't dedicate themselves to the uplift of their people—the yin to the yang of James Brown's observation that "Dollars is what this thing is about. You cannot get liberated, broke."

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Interim Posting: Vaginal Davis

I will post new content in a day or two, including some final thoughts on the meaning of Michael Jackson. In the meantime, here is the full interview I conducted with Vaginal Davis recently. I've known and loved Vag for years and just wanted to get a quote or two for my profile of Bruce LaBruce; I ended up asking my editor if we could run a Vag sidebar/profile. It can be found in the current issue (old-media) of Flaunt magazine (Issue 103.) I've also attached a link to Vag's blog at the end of my post.

Vaginal Davis—author, actress, screenwriter, film director, ’zine publisher (of the late, lamented, and hugely influential rag, Fertile LaToya Jackson), painter, and raconteur—has known Bruce LaBruce for two decades. They spring from a shared cultural and aesthetic root of ’80s punk and Jean Genet, gritty porn and Fassbinder. But what most strongly binds them is a shared, reflexive mistrust of the status quo, which is manifest in their each artist’s work. Davis is now a resident of Berlin, having abandoned Los Angeles and the United States over two years ago. La Negressa, as she signs off these days, is in the midst of prepping for a series of performance gigs that will take her across Europe, so she answered questions about LaBruce — whom she calls Judy — via e-mail, and in her own inimitable style, creating new words out of thin air and crashing bull-in-a-China-shop style over notions of propriety and reality.

Ernest Hardy: Can you place Bruce’s work in the historical context of queer and experimental film?

Vaginal Davis: Bruce “Judy” La Bruce is part of the continuum of experimental queer filmmakers like Jack Smith and Andy Warhol. I’ve always found Judy more in keeping with the Smithian tradition than Warhol, though he gets lumped in with Warhol. His aesthetic choices are more Smith, with the shaky camera, grainy film stock, images barely registering on the screen but evoking a lot of intense beauty, and as [New York Times film critic] Man!hola (sic) Dargis put it when No Skin Off My Ass came out, “femme wit and butch charm,” or something like that. I went to see Super 8 1/2 at the Sunset 5 with a normative gay audience during its theatrical run at a matinee show, and these bourgie white industry fagulas (sic) walked out screaming, “Doesn’t this director know how to use a tripod? This movie is making me dizzy…” I was loving the matinee sweater-queen critics.

EH: You’ve worked with him a few times in the past. What have those experiences been like?

VD: I’ve worked with Judy on two films, Hustler White and Super 8 1/2. We collaborate well in that we share the same aesthetics and failuretics (sic) and came from the same post-punk-y orbit. We are both masters of availablism — making the best use of what’s available at any particular moment. In 2007-08 we collaborated and toured with “Cheap Blacky,” Bruce’s first stab at directing for the stage. I was really impressed that Judy was able to edit his zombie flick Otto; or, Up With Dead People and direct his first performance piece at the same time. He was really operating without a safety net. I am working with Judy again on his second piece for the stage in Zurich. The theme is male hysteria and the title of this project is called “Macho Family Romance.” This piece is a collaboration between Judy, me, and Susanne Sachsse—the East German actress who used to be part of the Berliner ensemble, and who is Judy’s muse. Susanne is [to LaBruce] what Julianne Moore is to Todd Haynes. I introduced them. Susanne starred in Raspberry Reich and is the silent-film girl in Otto. Bruce couldn’t find the right actress for Raspberry Reich until I introduced him to Susanne, who I started working with in the CHEAP art kollective back in 2001, here in Berlin.

EH: You’re also working on another project with him, right?

VD: The third project we will work on later in the year is called "The Bad Breast" and is vaguely based on the writings of Naomi Klein. This piece is on female hysteria and will feature me, Susanne, the famed ’60s model Verushka, and fellow Canadian (and Berlin resident) Peaches.

EH: And what is it like collaborating on a professional level, given that you are also friends?

VD: I work well with Judy, but she can be problematic— she’s selfish, egotistical, and bratty. Those are her good qualities. We butt heads quite a bit. She has a husband now, this Afro-Cuban Santeria priest that she gay-married —yuck— and talks about non-stop. The guy has a fourteen-inch penis. I am an old-fashioned loner type who is basically unboyfriendable, so of course I hate people who are coupled. That is natural for me to resent domesticity in my friends.

EH: What do you think his influence has been on queer culture and queer filmmaking?

VD: Both Bruce and I came out of the ’zine scene of the ’80s. And that was an important movement that countered the normative faggoty world. Bruce is definitely an important filmmaker who has influenced a generation of young FITs (fags-in-training) in the knowledge that there is another way of being a same-sex lover than this whole gay-equals-spend-here-and-now, status-quo bologna.

EH: What do you think is his best work so far?

VD: My favorite film of Judy’s is Raspberry Reich. His sense of humor and the politics all come together the best in that one. And of course there is Susanne, who puts in a tour-de-force performance. And back then she barely knew English. She lost her agent in Germany because of the sex scene with the gay porn model. Bruce, politically, is a sister of the cloth with Jean Genet. I think he has a real genius film in him, and that movie will only emerge if he works with Susanne. I keep pushing him in this new direction. We will see what happens. Skin Flick, his Nazi movie, I also like; especially the scene where the main hooligan and his gang break into the salt & pepper [interracial] couple’s house and rape the black lover, and they all shout “Fuck the Monkey!” It’s so wrong but so right. Like my late mother used to say, “I would rather suck the three-horned penis of the grand cyclops of the KKK than [deal] with a well-meaning white Liberal.”

Vag's blog

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Michael Jackson: Bless His Soul

      When I was contacted by Sony Legacy last year to write the liner notes for the re-issues of the Jacksons’ CDs Destiny and Triumph, as well as a new Greatest Hits collection, I immediately felt two emotions: fear and excitement. This wouldn’t be me introducing an artist or an album/CD to an audience. This was music with which I already had a deep personal history, but which a whole lot of folks knew far better than I. I’ll admit that I entertained the fantasy that Michael and his brothers might actually read the notes. Somewhere in my mind the dozing fanboy was stirred and I thought of this as a chance to stitch a thread that would do some heavy duty connecting: from the younger me who’d religiously watched the J5 Saturday morning cartoon; to the very young me who’d watched his diaper-clad toddler cousin, Lesley, bend at the waist to smack the floor with her palms for emphasis as she sang I-I-I wun-duuuuuh who’s lovin’ you; to the preadolescent me who’d been so dazzled by the Jackson (and Sister Sledge) concert in support of the Destiny CD that when I returned home and my mother asked how it was, I stuttered and grinned like a fool; to the teenage me who’d watch my sister wash dishes and sing along to “Bless His Soul,” “Push Me Away,” and “That’s What You Get for Being Polite,” and be moved and a little frightened at the wistfulness in her voice & eyes as she sang; to the me who instantly got sick of “Beat It,” but could play “Rock With You” over and over, and over again… I wanted to draw a thread from all of me to all of the Jacksons, and express something of what their music had meant to me. I’d never wanted to be Mike, or be anything like him; never imitated him in a mirror or “performed” him for family entertainment. But I’d closed my bedroom door, turned up the music and fallen in.

This is an excerpt of what I wrote in the Destiny notes:

      "While “Blame It on the Boogie,” “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground),” “Things I Do For You,” and “All Night Dancing” are vintage Jackson high energy dance tunes, it was the ballads – “Bless His Soul,” “Push Me Away,” and “Destiny” – that were most dazzling. 20-year-old Michael had himself just navigated the turbulent, terrifying waters of adolescence, which so often wreak havoc on everything from the tone and pliability of one’s voice to the health of one’s literal skin, and he’d emerged as one of the sturdiest heartthrobs and most influential soul singers ever. As the front-man on Destiny, he masterfully rolled out his signature vocal licks, revealed a deepened artistry as a sensitive interpreter of lyrics, and hung tight in the middle between the most delicate vulnerability and an undeniable strength on his lead vocals. He wholly immersed himself in the music and the listener had no choice but to follow him. He was also planting the seeds for the lyric themes and ideas (one-world harmony; the difficulty in being one’s self when the world is watching and judging) that he would explore so successfully in his near future as a solo artist.
      The Jacksons were the flowers of the Civil Rights movement, the Black Pride movement. Their exquisite, perfectly round afros and stylized street attire celebrated a proud new aesthetic. Their stop-on-a-dime perfect choreography drew from the hottest moves of the day while simultaneously harkening back to black performing traditions gleaned from masters like Jackie Wilson, Sammy Davis Jr., James Brown and the artists at the Jacksons’ first musical home, Motown. In their own relentlessly honed and perfected artistry, they paid homage to those who had come before them while updating the blueprint for future generations. They were the carriers and embodiment of so many hopes, fantasies and dreams – cultural and political ambassadors just by virtue of their being: Smart, talented, visionary, hard working young Black Americans, coming into their own after a decade of bloody struggle and sacrifice. The Jacksons seemed to be pointing not only black and white America but the world at large toward new possibilities of expression and being.”


      I think a point in the second paragraph should be underscored regarding the cultural and political climate that shaped Michael into the force he became. He was Blackness and maleness, soul music and pop culture, all forged pre-hip-hop, pre-Reagan, pre-crack, pre the implosion of short-lived Civil Rights-era idealism and hope. That’s an incalculably important point to understand the thick strands of optimism, possibility, aesthetic & political vision that ran through his work. And that makes the darkness and paranoia that marbled so much of his later work all the more heartbreaking, especially as it roughly paralleled the shifting tenor of the times. He never lost his humanitarian streak or his belief in the overall goodness of humanity, but the evolution of his own relationship to the world and his feelings about how he was treated darkened noticeably.


      I want to pull forth another DNA thread for a minute: The beauty and power of Michael Jackson, particularly in the first 30 or so years of his life, was that he was Black. It’s important to stress and explain that because in this “post-race/post-black” moment, it’s become obvious that a lot of Negroes rushing to free themselves from the so-called shackles of Blackness, aided by “colorblind” and “progressive” non-Negroes, don’t even know what Blackness is: Working like a dog while mired in poverty in Gary, Indiana – endless rehearsals, mastering back-breaking craftsmanship, sweltering under the heat of a father’s dream deferred – all while aiming for a big time mapped out by sweat, hope and faith; that’s Black. Not letting your lack of material comforts impede your forward motion; that’s Black. Being rooted in the working-class/struggling class vortex of innovation, perserverance and resilence that has birthed all the Negro musical r/evolutions in this country; that’s Black. Building effortlessly on the past and setting a whole new bar for the future; blacker than Black. Exercising the prerogative of organic genius by laying claim to shit that already exists and just making it your own; B-l-a-c-k. Mapping the template and setting the pace that will govern the globe; b-b-b-b-Black. Coming of age amidst proud shouts of “Black is beautiful” and effortlessly embodying the adage, but somehow getting infected with the centuries-old disease of white supremacy and internalized racism that will have you repeatedly take a knife to your natural born beauty… that’s so very Black. Being universal in your struggles and triumphs just by being you: Black.


      There is so much more to say and it comes in a rush, so bear with me and I’ll try to be coherent and succinct.

      So many of the tributes being written, especially by Negroes, and most especially by Negro males, think they are bestowing the ultimate praise on him by positioning him alongside conventional, traditional soul men or icons of Negro male cool. Make that unquestionable hetero Negro male cool. But the thing about Michael, especially in his adolescent and early adult years, was that he resonated so powerfully precisely because he upended and shimmered beyond gender convention. It seems especially noteworthy that he cemented his solo superstar status during the gender-bending / gender-fucking era of the early ‘80s, alongside Boy George, Annie Lennox, Prince, a funkily reinvigorated Grace Jones – though he was a seasoned old pro in comparison to all of them. (It was his second start at a solo career.) Because his gender-tweak shit was subtle relative to those artists, it doesn’t really get commented upon. But Mike evolved from childhood mimicry of the masculinity of soul titans to something more complex and more layered. It was his. And it eventually housed a much more problematic sexuality. It’s difficult (if not impossible) to know the ways in which his abusive childhood, the adult responsibilities carried on his childhood shoulders, and the paradoxically sheltered and wide-open pop star lifestyle he lived at an early age all contoured his sexuality, and to then fully know what inclinations and fetishes might have been innate and which were externally shaped.

      Curiously absent from the praise and aesthetic roll-call being put forth for Mike is one name: Diana Ross. His obsession with and emulation of her are well documented but she’s not being cited in the obits. It’s a glaring and telling omission that has much to do with the low critical regard in which Ross is held, and the reluctance of critics to own up to not just the deep influence that diva Ross had on boy wonder Jackson, but on the ways in which her persona and performing style play out in his style. Here’s what I wrote about Diana and her artistic spawn, Michael, in my 2006 essay, “Diana Ross: OG Diva Sings the Blues”:

“It’s well known that Mike studied James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Sammy Davis Jr. and a host of other captivating male singers in order to perfect his showmanship. His idol-worship of Diana Ross has been reduced to snickering speculation on his sexuality and sanity. In truth, Jackson simply spotted in Ross a kindred spirit — someone born to the stage, someone who is without peer when inspiration strikes. He recognized a fellow artist.”

Peep the Ross/Jackson love in the following clips:




I also find it interesting how the lyrics in so many of the old Jackson songs seem to be young Michael speaking with wisdom and foresight to his future self – warnings, laments, foreshadowing:

From “That’s What You Get for Being Polite”:

Jack still cries day and night
Jack's not happy with his life
He want to do this, he want to do that
You want to be kind, but ends up flat for love
For love

He tries so hard to give a lot
He wants to be what he is not
Love's not harsh and love's not bad
And what's he doing for love is so sad
(He wants to be so bad)
(He wants to be so bad) All the time getting in
Things he can't get out
Something deep inside of him
Eating up the pride of him
That makes him buy things for the girls
(That's what you get for being polite)
(For being polite)

Jack still sits all alone
He lives the world that is his own
He's lost in thought of who to be
I wish to God that he would see just love
Give him love


From “Bless His Soul”:

I try to do what's right for me
But no one sees the way I see
And then I try to please them so
But how far can this pleasing go…

Sometimes I cry ,cause I'm confused
Is this a fact of being used
There is no life for me at all
'Cause I give myself at beck and call

From “Destiny”:

In this world there's much confusion
And I've taste the city life and it's not for me
Now I do dream of distant places
Where? I don't know now, but it's destiny...

If it's the rich life
I don't want it
Happiness ain't always material things

I want destiny
It's the place for me
Give me the simple life
I'm getting away from here
Let me be me
C'mon let me feel free…

      There is so much more to say. Michael Jackson was layer upon layer of metaphor and walking commentary/cautionary tale. But I want to close by saying that the bifurcated coverage of his death leaves both sides with an incomplete picture. The sensationalists ignore the power and beauty of his work while wallowing in the sordid. Michael tapped into something universal and transcendent that reached from Gary, Indiana to Selma, Alabama to Moscow to Paris to Hong Kong. His soulful, heartfelt music and poetic athleticism were otherworldly; they resonated with all kinds of people. They soothed and inspired. At the same time, though, this is a man who had an obsession with childhood and an idealized notion of its trappings of innocence and playfulness, extending all the way to his hosting sleepovers with young boys that were, at a minimum, creepy as hell. He was damaged. He was thwarted in some crucial ways. It seems to me that the same impulses that manifested in his divine art also manifested as questionable (to put it mildly) predilections for companionship. (He’s in esteemed company in that regard.) It should all be put on the table at once. That’s the only way to get a truly complete picture of the man and glean something of both the sublime and the darker elements of his life and work, and to make sense of the fact that a wealthy, immeasurably influential, unfathomably talented global icon was seemingly so unhappy, so pained, and so unable to combat it.

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Naomi Klein Breaks it Down... Again