I finally got to see Black Panther. I missed the chance to watch it when it first came out with the gang. Tom Wilkinson and I got caught in a little snow storm coming back from a gig at Mission Ridge Ski & Board Resort.
So tonight I did what I don’t think I have done since college. I went to the movies my damn self. I didn’t want to miss this. I could see Ayo Dot’s eyes after our last show that this movie is everything it was supposed to be.
My thoughts are simple. Thank goodness that with all of this pressure and all of this expectation, Black Panther delivered. I sounded like my Dad watching Indiana Jones or Top Gun, talking to the screen in the near empty theater. But not completely empty. This movie is still printing money.
It should. It’s a fantasy, but its fist pumping levels of idealism of an Africa harnessing its resources and genius isn’t outside the realm of possibility. Africa has made the world rich and powerful, and in the foreseeable future, nations of Africa may rise to the caliber of its citizens and the achievements of its own diaspora.
Seeing the mix of technology and tradition was beautiful. Black Panther is inspiring more than just Africans. It wouldn’t be setting records if it was only reaching Tyler Perry’s core audience. But both Tyler Perry and this movie represent the fact Black audiences in America are underserved with movies about themselves in roles that have dignity and aren’t following the tropes going back to seeing a new Black character on Star Trek and know that he is going to die a decent but quickly forgotten death and never be mentioned again.
It was time. With a White Supremacist Villain in the White House, and a good man shot in the back 7 times Sacramento while a bad man blowing himself up and is mourned by the police in Austin, that is our Comic Book story arc, and it f☆cking sucks. No serious non comedy could even feature a Donald Trump like character as President, without turning into Naked Gun starring OJ Simpson today as new the Mayor of Los Angeles.
Because we live in a White Supremacist Hell where the bad guys have got all their people hooked on Opiates, and feed them only the dumbest memes to control what is left of their minds, we really needed this.
I needed it. I got a gift of inspiration and hope watching this film. I had a vision. I have this song called, ‘Father’ that maybe one of my finest weapons I have hidden in my secret vault of musical sketches. I wrote the riffs in 2009 before my first real West Coast tour and it is the most African thing yet like nothing Africa has yet to produce. Not yet. It sounds like Afro Funk on the Death Star.
I had a vision of myself with Mtrill Teria in Lagos, Nigeria this December, finally recording the song, in a land my Mother’s DNA test said I am also from.
It might make some folks squirm that I look as ambiguous as I do, calling Nigeria the Fatherland, but a piece of me is in Nigeria within their millions and I am going to bring them back one a startling song.
Everywhere where I go, I bring one riff, one song that will open the gates and unlock doors. Watching Black Panther, I saw which one I am bringing to Africa’s greatest Mega city. A city so vast the population of 8 Jamaica’s can stand inside it.
But I may also just have been swooning because Lupita Nyong’o is one of the most stunning, ravishing, elegant looking women on this earth. And she can also act. I would stand in line to see her in anything.
So if you don’t mind the truth, but I walked out of the theater after last hidden scene saying, Lupita Forever.
They nailed it when they cast her as a future Queen. She lit up that screen like only a few people I have ever known.
But I am just prejudice because I am crushing, and like millions of other people around the world tonight, I kind of believe in Wakanda.
Now that sequel better not fall off.
Davin’s new song has been released and is fast becoming a dancehall hit. Listen here on Reggaeville: DAVIN MICHAEL STEDMAN & ANTHONY RED ROSE – FREE YOUR MIND FEAT. SLY & ROBBIE WITH LENKY MARSDEN
– Musician and writer Davin Michael Stedman has many musical ventures and is one of the driving forces behind the Staxx Brothers. He has just returned from three weeks of networking and reporting from Kingston, Jamaica. Next stop, Lagos, Nigeria.
