Soul Power – 35 Years of Jungle Funk
The recently released Soul Power documentary captures the state-sponsored 1974 concert in Zaire that set the stage for Muhammad Ali and George Foreman’s legendary “Rumble in the Jungle.”
What a spectacle of soul-infused musical bravado. In the midst of Vietnam, Nixon, Civil Rights, and a miserable economy, Don King and James Brown pulled off the impossible, just like Ali, in the middle of war-torn Zaire. That’s some Soul Power.
Soul Power is produced and directed by Jeff Levy-Hinte, president of Antidote Films, who was also the producer-director of the Oscar-winning documentary When We Were Kings (1996). Most of the Soul Power footage was uprooted after the production of When We Were Kings. All this gloriously funky footage has been waiting nearly 35 years to see the light.
Soul Power keeps your head bobbing by showcasing these historic performances from funk, soul, and R&B legends like B.B. King, Bill Withers, and the kinetic madman and self-professed Sex-Machine, James Brown, whose early-70s single of the same name lends the film its title.
Using notable cinematographers, Albert Maysles and Paul Goldsmith, to lend the documentary a gritty but stunning style verité, the footage captures the Don King-promoted Rumble in the Jungle’s political and personal spirits in all their vivid intensity.
Can you say, “Gonna have a funky good time…”?
Aural Pleasure, Movies and Cinema, The Good Life, The New World, boxing