Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, which turns 50 this month, is the opposite of the definition imposed on it. The 1971 film inspired the Blaxploitation genre, but Melvin Van Peebles exploited no one ...

In the year-long series Sounds Of Blaxploitation, Craig D. Lindsey plays the hits that defined a genre, drawing connections between the music of the moment and the films that gave it a platform. With ...

With his third feature, from 1971, the writer and director Melvin Van Peebles ripped to shreds the stereotypes of middle-class respectability that Hollywood then imposed on Black actors. He also stars ...

This past weekend, while most pop culture watchers were debating the latest entry in the Tyler Perry oeuvre — and moviegoers parting with a collective $25 million in order to see it — an historical ...

Melvin Van Peebles, the influential indie filmmaker who helped spawn the Blaxploitation genre with his 1971 film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song, has died at the ...

He directed 'Watermelon Man,' did everything on 'Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song' and wrote a pair of Broadway musicals. By Mike Barnes Senior Editor Van Peebles, the father of actor-director Mario ...

Four days after Melvin Van Peebles' death, his son joined NYFF to salute his father's iconic "Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song." “This film was made at a time when you didn’t really see Black people ...

"You're Gone (Again)" "It Don't Show on Me" "My Uncle Used to Love Me (But She Died) ""I Want to Be a Real Cowboy Girl" With superb musicianship and an appreciation for times gone by, The Sweetback ...

Melvin Van Peebles, the groundbreaking filmmaker behind “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song,” and father of director and actor Mario Van Peebles, has died. He was 89. “Sweet Sweetback” was a ...

Not surprisingly, The Sweetback Sisters have taken many requests for Merle Haggard songs over the years. “It’s easy in a straight-ahead country band to cover his tunes; it’s akin to riding a bicycle.