Soul Power

Soul Power. Dir. Jeffrey Levy- Hinte (2009). Soul Power is named after the James Brown song. This Film came about by persuading the boxing promoter Don King to combine a music festival with the Rumble in the Jungle, the boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Stuart Levine and Hugh Masakela, the organisers, conceived an assertion of black pride and created a legendary music festival in Kinshasa with headlining acts featuring James Brown, BB King, Bill Withers, The Crusaders, Celia Cruz, Miriam Makeba, and local bands.

It was whilst editing When We Were Kings, the Oscar winning 1966 documentary of the boxing match, that the archives of the film of the fight revealed amazing footage from the music festival. The director Levy-Hinte wanted the film to feel very different and to do this he stayed with the ‘cinema verite’ modality, as seen in other concerts at the time such as Monterey Pop and Soul to Soul which provided a sense of direction. The music leaps out, and the sound quality is remarkable, there’s a variety of music with Try Me by James Brown and Sister Sledge doing Curtis Mayfields On and On; Pointer Sisters doing Yes we can can. Everyone is at the top of their game and there’s raw energy in all those familiar songs.