Coffy is the Color
Blaxploitation, Vol. 1 – Soul, Jazz, & Funk From the Inner-City (1996)
Various Artists
Wasn’t it Jay-Z who coined the term “Black Superhero Music” and applied it to his own body of work? I have to take issue with that claim, it doesn’t take much searching to realize that Black Superhero Music is nothing new. It’s been around for years, as anthologies like Blaxploitation exist to prove. The title and cover art of this brilliant compilation instantly evoke memories of American International’s string of gritty black cinema classics of the 1970’s, but shoehorning this amazing compilation into the category of “genre soundtrack” would be to massively shortchange the music contained inside. Yeah, many of the tracks included were culled directly from movies like Superfly and Shaft, but the songs are powerful, honest, and just plain badass enough to stand on their own merit, and in many cases, they have actually eclipsed the popularity of the films they were featured in…
Read the rest on Shit on my iPhone.
Interview from HipHop DX:
DX: I can’t help but think about all the similarities between Blaxploitation cinema and Kung-Fu movies…
RZA: [laughs] Definitely. And we’ll get into more of that information as the release date gets nearer, but I will say this. I have a centerpiece of Blaxploitation in the film; obviously that was a big 70’s genre. I also have Gordon Liu, the Master Killer himself, who was a centerpiece of the Kung-Fu genre. The funniest part for me though, was that I got a character from Bruce Lee’s Return of the Dragon. In that movie, Bruce Lee is trying to protect the restaurant, and there’s an old white man trying to take over his business. And I cast him in The Man with the Iron Fists, just for that reason. Jon is in the movie!
We had other choices, but when I found out we could get him, it was like, “Oh no. I want this motherfucker!” He’s one of the first villains that I had ever seen watching Bruce Lee movies. He came in wanting to buy the restaurant, and he was just really discriminating. And in my film he plays a character that’s similar…it’s someone with power.
Hahahaha! This is lining up to become an instant classic. Even if you’re not a fan, RZA clearly knows his kung fu films and seems to be bringing in all the heavy hitters. For those who don’t remember Jon Benn, this might jog your memory.
