Ahmir Thompson, better known as Questlove, is set to make his feature directorial debut on the documentary film “Black Woodstock” about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. The film’s producers Robert Fyvolent and David Dinerstein announced Monday that the film has begun production.
The festival held in Harlem’s Mount Morris Park in 1969 drew 300,000 attendees and was and known locally as the “Black Woodstock,” and yet it received almost no attention from the media in comparison to Woodstock. Even so, the outdoor festival featured performances from luminaries such as Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Nina Simone, B.B. King, the Staple Singers, the 5th Dimension, David Ruffin, Mahalia Jackson and Gladys Knight and the Pips.
The documentary will be derived from 40 hours of never-before-seen footage shot by TV producer Hal Tulchin, who kept the footage in storage for the past 50 years.
“I am truly excited to help bring the passion, the story and the music of the Harlem Cultural Festival to audiences around the world,” Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson said in a statement. “The performances are extraordinary. I was stunned when I saw the lost footage for the first time. It’s incredible to look at 50 years of history that’s never been told, and I’m eager and humbled to tell that story.”
“The music and performances in Black Woodstock will knock audiences out of their seats,” producers Dinerstein and Fyvolent said. “The footage is unusually rich in texture and feel. We are so proud to be working alongside Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson on his directorial debut. We are confident he will bring an authenticity and unique vision to the film. We are thrilled to partner with some of the best people and organizations working in the documentary space today including Vulcan Productions, Concordia Studio, Play/Action Pictures and RadicalMedia.”
Producers Fyvolent and Dinerstein have tapped RadicalMedia (“What Happened, Miss Simone?”) as creative and production partners, with Jon Kamen and Dave Sirulnick serving as executive producers. The film is co-produced by Vulcan Productions. Concordia Studio, Play/Action Pictures and Beth Hubbard will also serve as executive producers. Joseph Patel will serve as a producer with Joshua L. Pearson on board as editor and Randall Poster as the music supervisor.
The 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival was organized and produced by Tony Lawrence, who also served as the master of ceremonies. The idea behind this festival, which took place one year after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, was to celebrate African American music, culture and politics, and to promote black pride and unity.
Questlove is the drummer and one of the members of the R&B and hip hop band The Roots, which serves as the house band for “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.” He’s also a DJ and entrepreneur and is a four-time Grammy winner who has directed projects with D’Angelo, Eminem and Jay-Z. He most recently wrote his fourth book “Mixtape Potluck” and is executive producing the documentary series “Hip-Hop: The Songs The Shook America” on AMC under his production company Two One Five Entertainment.
Oscars: 18 Best Original Song Contenders Speak, From Nick Jonas to Questlove (Exclusive Photos)
Here are 18 of this year's contenders for Best Original Song at the Oscars.
Questlove •
"It Ain't Fair" from "Detroit" •
"I saw the movie, which was my worst nightmare. And I went home and I was up ‘til 5 in the morning trying to process what I saw. I felt like I was going to explode inside. Kathryn [Bigelow] said she was going to give 48 hours to process it, but by the 24th hour it was killing me, and I called her. She said, 'How do you feel?' I said, 'I’m angry.' She said, 'Good. Can you create something out of the anger?'”
Photographed by Irvin Rivera for TheWrap
Nick Jonas •
"Home" from "Ferdinand" •
"[Co-writer] Justin Trantor and I talked about the scene we’d been shown, which was a montage sequence where Ferdinand starts as a young bull and then grows up in this loving family. And the feeling we both took away from it was this idea of family and feeling like you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be with the people you’re supposed to be with. And for he and I both, that’s home. So we ran with that, and the song just flowed right out of that."
Photographed by Corina Marie for TheWrap
Ryan Tedder and T-Bone Burnett •
"Truth to Power" from "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power" •
Tedder: "I said, 'If this is the church of the environment, of Earth, what is going to get people to come forward and repent and join the religion?'"
Burnett: "The altar-call aspect of it was the key from the beginning. Al Gore went to divinity school at Vanderbilt, so all of us have that in our background. And when we brought in the choir, that was when it all made sense."
Photographed by Irvin Rivera for TheWrap
Elvis Costello •
"You Shouldn't Look at Me That Way" from "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool" •
"This particular episode in Gloria [Grahame]’s life has a poignancy -- she’s quite vulnerable, combative at times, and Peter [Turner] has his secrets as well. That’s the stuff of songs, or certainly the stuff of my songs. I’m not very good at the straightforward 'I love you, you love me' type songs."
Photographed by Elisabeth Caren for TheWrap
Sara Bareilles and Nicholas Britell •
"If I Dare" from "Battle of the Sexes" •
Bareilles: "Really, I just really wanted to make [Billie Jean King] happy with the song. ... And when we finished the song and got word that she loved it…"
Photographed by Irvin Rivera for TheWrap
Dierks Bentley •
"Hold the Light" from "Only the Brave" •
"To me, now more than ever, especially after [the concert shootings in] Las Vegas, these are just dark times, man. Dark times and heavy hearts. The idea was to hold the light, to find that one little piece of hope. Hold onto that hope of a better time, of what you had and might see again."
Photographed by Leon Ofsky for TheWrap
Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez •
"Remember Me" from "Coco" •
Kristin Anderson-Lopez: "Bobby basically sat at the piano and wrote this melody in, like, 20 minutes and recorded it onto my iPhone. I took it on the subway and I wrote out the lyrics on my way to rehearsal."
Robert Lopez: "It kind of poured out of me, but your brain’s working overtime even before you start on it."
Photographed by Stephanie Diani for TheWrap
Common and Diane Warren•
"Stand Up for Something" from "Marshall" •
Warren: "I thought, 'This could be great within this movie, but it could also be bigger than that.' But who knew how timely it could be to these times?"
Common: "I felt like the song was written for the world. Whenever there’s something that takes some sacrifice, some heart and courage and love -- that’s what I felt from that song."
Photographed by Shanna Fisher for TheWrap
Alan Menken • "How Can a Moment Last Forever" and "Evermore" from "Beauty and the Beast" •
"The task, really, is to not mess with the original DNA of the musical, and to support those tentpole moments that hold the structure together: 'Beauty and the Beast,' 'Be Our Guest' … The job is to add moments that are not going to compete with them but enhance them."
Photographed by Justin Bettman for TheWrap
Laura Karman, Raphael Saadiq & Taura Stinson •
"Jump" from "Step" •
Karpman: "I think the idea of jumping being a quiet thing is really kind of radical. It’s the idea of what it takes to really face your fears -- you steady yourself as you try to figure out what the next step will be and how you’ll confront the challenge."
Stinson: "Mood-wise, I knew it had to start small, from inside you, and then go up and out."
Saadiq: "All I thought about when I heard the title was Van Halen’s 'Jump.' [Laughs] But I didn’t say that to Taura."
Photographed by Jonny Marlow for TheWrap
Benj Pasek & Justin Paul •
"This Is Me" from "The Greatest Showman" •
Paul: "[Director] Michael [Gracey] always wanted an anthem for the oddities, the band of folks who think of themselves as outcasts and have come together in this circus family to find their tribe."
Pasek: "Originally, we had a very low-key song sung by Tom Thumb in that spot. But we did some workshops, and one of the people we worked with was Keala Settle, who was going to play the Bearded Lady, Lettie. And having a talent like her, and knowing that we had the opportunity for her voice in this moment, things become a lot clearer and the song organically emerged."
Photographed by Irvin Rivera for TheWrap
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TheWrap Oscar Magazine: Songwriters stop by TheWrap for an interview and photo session
Here are 18 of this year's contenders for Best Original Song at the Oscars.
