When you bump into a hero
What do you do?
Shake their hand?,stay cool?,let them know exactly how you feel?
Well in this case the solution was easy because the hero in question was astonishingly cool,in fact he let us know that he was impressed with how we have turned out,cuz in his day things were definately not as easy,and to see us being the way we were made him happy,which is quite amazing when you think of it.
This man made the first independently produced black film,he not only produced it,he directed it and starred in it,he also composed the music,and wrote the screen play.
The film was “sweet sweetbacks baaadasssong”.a classic in black film history.
We meet people who made their mark against all odds and in an unusually hostile environment and we have to check ourselves because we seem to have forgotten how things were so completely otherwise that we seem to have not noticed.
Whilst on my way to a festival in lausanne,and after having withstood an intense four months of preparation and eventually promotion of my new album,and then the release and all the things that went with it,I took off for charles de gaulle airport,with my sunglasses on and in my freenegro stride I walk up to the checkout desk and who should I see but Melvin Van Peebles the creator of the first independenly produced black film.
I was just talking about him the other day with someone I love,we spoke of growing old in the deepest most creative and funkiest way possible and we began to mention names of people who had achieved so much whilst they were young but still kept on giving in old age,whilst also looking cool.I promptly approached him to shake his hand and to let him know how much we appreciate him,that it was individuals like him that made us possible and he was happy,I gave him a copy of Nigerian Wood and he said he would check it out.he says he has a new film coming out in the spring,it had a really long title but im hipping you to this meeting in the hope that you will look out for it when it comes
Peace
jnz