Directed by Jeffrey Levy-Hinte
(PG-13)
****
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American soul music comes to Africa in 1974.
Soul Power is a “riveting glimpse of another time,” said Sean O’Hagan in the London Observer. Director Jeffery Levy-Hinte has created a harmonious companion to Leon Gast’s When We Were Kings, which chronicled Muhammad Ali and George Foreman’s “rumble” in the Zaire jungle in 1974. While the fight was the “main event” of that film, Soul Power spotlights the three-day celebration of African, Afro-Cuban, and African-American music that took place nearby. Organized by Don King and labeled the “Black Woodstock,” it featured many heavyweights of American soul, said Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly. B.B. King wowed the crowd with “The Thrill Is Gone,” Bill Withers stopped hearts with “Hope She’ll Be Happier,” and James Brown, “in his peacock prime,” closed with a powerhouse performance of “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud).” The festival turned out to be an “international statement of togetherness,” said Nathan Rabin in The Onion. Three and a half decades on, the filmed performances remain a “stirring affirmation of black pride and international brotherhood.”
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