The actor’s new documentary series salutes 50 years of African American creativity, from Sidney Poitier and Stevie Wonder to Beyoncé and Black Panther
I have been lucky enough to live through an era of extraordinary creativity. As a kid growing up in Birmingham, it was often to the other side of the Atlantic that I looked for my role models. Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier were my screen heroes, films such as Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner had a big impact. Soul music, and Stevie Wonder in particular, were the soundtrack to my youth, and the likes of Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes and Marvin Gaye provided the backing to the so-called “blaxploitation” films that blew me away in the 1970s and showed me a racier side of African American life. Later on, the likes of Spike Lee and the Hughes brothers took film-making in whole new directions, combining hip-hop, politics and social commentary to electrifying effect. Today, many of the biggest phenomena in entertainment – Beyoncé, Bridgerton, Black Panther – are the products of largely Black American creativity.
Now, with new BBC documentary series Get on Up: The Triumph of Black America, I’ve been given the chance to explore how, across the span of my own lifetime, this creativity has come to dominate popular culture, and changed the entertainment landscape right around the world. In previous documentaries I have looked at some pretty tough subjects – race, racism, mental health. But a series celebrating Black creativity, exploring what makes African American culture so dynamic and globally successful? I couldn’t turn it down.
