Summer of Soul

In a way, this dashed-off post is a perfect homage to a subject that received far less acclaim and reverence than it deserved. In 1969, the Harlem Cultural Festival featured six concerts attended by more than 300,000 people in Mount Morris Park. More than 47 rolls of high-quality video and audio were recorded. The festival was a celebration of blackness and brownness and shared humanity.

And it was lost to history. Until now.

Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson and his filmmaking team set about restoring the film and turning the footage into a documentary entitled 'Summer of Soul', and it's brilliant. Performances by young Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, Nina Simone, Mavis Staples (with and without Mahalia Jackson), The Fifth Dimension, Hugh Masekela, Ray Barretto, David Ruffin, an epic Sly Stone, and numerous others are set against a crowd of beautiful black folks at a time when most of the news from places like Harlem was bleak.

This post can't possibly do it justice. Get yourself to Hulu to check it out.