In 1974, the most celebrated American R&B acts and Southern African musical groups came together for a 12-hour, three-night music festival in Kinshasa, Zaire. The dream-child of musician Hugh Masekela and producer Stewart Levine, the festival became reality when they combined the event with “The Rumble in the Jungle”, the epic fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman captured by the film When We Were Kings.
Selected for That’s a Wrap by Hayley Flynn:
Plagued by depression for most of my life I have identified a handful of activities that can help lift me out of the worst of days into slightly more bearable ones, and at the top of that list is the cinema – in fact the whole experience of an independent cinema especially. As a kind of therapy treatment or promise to myself to look after my mental health I made a date with Cornerhouse every Sunday at 6pm. Each week I’d arrive and watch whatever film was showing closest to that time, or maybe arrive a little earlier and read a book, people watch through those enormous windows onto Oxford Road, and just feel triumphant in some way that I’d got dressed and actually kept my promise to myself. Soul Power was one of the most memorable Sundays for me. I hadn’t known what I was in for, and it totally lifted me out of myself. The other half of the footage captured went on to become When We Were Kings, but this collection formed the story of the music festival that took place in Zaire in 1974. I felt nostalgic for a time that I didn’t even live through, elated at the footage of the riotous jam session on-board the plane, and a little heartbroken when Bill Withers sang out the screen to me Hope She’ll Be Happier. Most people I talk to about the film haven’t seen or even heard of it and I’d love others to get the chance to make it one of their most memorable Cornerhouse experiences too.