Tribeca Film Festival 2018: Blackness Is the Muse of Mr. Soul!

It was the blackest, most brilliant and beautiful evening I’ve spent in a long time—which is a pretty high bar, since I work, live and play with brilliant, beautiful black people every day.

But Sunday night’s Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Mr. Soul!, the highly anticipated documentary on storied black variety show Soul!, was both an enlightening and inspiring experience. With the likes of Sonia Sanchez, Meshell Ndegeocello, Melba Moore, the Last Poets, Lalah Hathaway, Robert Glasper, Kathleen Cleaver and producer Blair Underwood among the sea of predominantly black excellence in attendance, it was instantly clear that it would be an evening as rich with culture as with community.

In the few years before Soul Train debuted in 1971, Soul! aired in many East Coast markets from 1968 to 1973 on the National Education Television Service (now known as WNET). It was a showcase for black artists of all mediums and the brainchild of producer and eventual host Ellis Haizlip, a product of both Howard University and the Black Arts Movement of the ’60s in Harlem. Mr. Soul! is a tribute to Haizlip’s genius, advocacy and …

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