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Soul! Ep 56 (414) - Miriam Makeba Interview
An admittedly nervous Nikki Giovanni continues interview of Miriam Makeba. Miriam discusses her immediate touring plans, and the honorary doctor of laws degree she received for her husband Stokely Carmichael. Miriam Makeba discusses the need for Africans & African-Americans to understand each other's cultures, especially when traveling.
Soul! Ep 56 (414) - Miriam Makeba Performance
Miriam Makeba & live band perform unidentified African ballad about a young man who leaves his village & his new bride to work & eventually die in the gold mines. Features an interpretive dance by the talented Judy Deering. World music. Afro-pop.
Soul! Ep 56 (414) - Miriam Makeba Performance
Miriam Makeba & live band perform unidentified African pop song dedicated to African women & the empowerment of all women around the world. Miriam Makeba gets funky, dances, loosens up the audience. World music. Afro-pop.
Soul! Ep 56 (414) - Miriam Makeba Performance
Miriam Makeba & live band perform unidentified African pop song that opens with a type of non-verbal scatting from Ms. Makeba. World music. Afro-pop. At outset, panning MS black audience applauding, followed by MS Nikki Giovanni thanking Miriam Makeba. MSs appreciative audience clapping.
Soul! Ep 56 (414) - Muhammad Ali Interview
Nikki Giovanni introduces former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay, Cassius X). TLS African American audience applauding. Muhammad Ali talks briefly about his father; his younger brother Rudolph Clay, also a boxer, predicting that he'd be in the top 10 heavyweight ranks, then adding that he would retire before fighting Rudy; his 3 children & one pending arrival.
Soul! Ep 56 (414) - Muhammad Ali Interview
Continuation of Nikki Giovanni interviewing Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali talks about Howard Cosell, ABC Wide World of Sports & his controversial fight vs. Buster Mathis: "I caught more hell for not trying to hurt him. So, from now on, there'll be no more lightening up. Next time I'm gonna knock him down & if he gets up I'm gonna try to knock him down again & if the referee doesn't stop it, if the judges don't stop it, it's not my fault." "If somebody gets hurt the next time they can't say that it's my fault b/c they gave me hell for trying to be human." The Champ praises Wide World of Sports for allowing the poor & invalid to watch his pricey fights. "Since I caught so much hell for trying to be nice & taking it easy on the man, look out from here on b/c I'm gonna be blasting. I'm gonna fight until he falls. If he gets up I'm gonna knock him down again & if anything happens they can't say nothing else. So look out whoever the next man is b/c he is in trouble."
Soul! Ep 56 (414) - Muhammad Ali Interview
Continuation of Muhammad Ali interview conducted by Nikki Giovanni. Muhammad Ali discusses his fight vs. Joe Frazier, Mar 8, 1971, aka Ali-Frazier I, saying that he mistakenly played w/ him for 3 rounds & didn't move like he should have. "At the time I hadn't won my draft case, one black man in the million dollar bracket who tells it like it is, who stays w/ his own kind-- so naturally they're going to pick the best boy to give it to. But the next time, there is no doubt, he must go out." "He won the decision but he took a terrible whupping." "We can't get on him, he's a brother. He fought good but he can't box. He has no skill but he hits hard. Takes a lot of whupping but he hits real hard. He hit me so hard in the 12th round, it jarred my kinfolk in Africa." Muhammad Ali says Joe Frazier won't retire in the near future: "It takes 3 years to be established as a champion. For him to retire it would really hurt him."
Soul! Ep 56 (414) - Muhammad Ali Interview
Continuation of Muhammad Ali interview conducted by Nikki Giovanni, who asks of his opinion of boxing's future. Muhammad Ali: "They say that boxing is dead b/c there are too many black people that rule it" & "it's interesting when you got different races & nationalities competing but when one race dominates, which is us, it's dead." "When I fought Jerry Quarry, who was a white Irishman, that was a big fight. But when I fought Buster Mathis it was a farce b/c it was 2 black men." Muhammad Ali is asked to dispense some words of wisdom to young men interested in pursuing sports; The Champ replies that he wouldn't advise a career in sports b/c it's too risky, both physically & financially, that they should concentrate on academics instead, but if they're really interested in boxing they should become a manager b/c "usually they get all the money." Muhammad Ali doesn't recommend a boxing career for young black men, stating that blacks need scientists, doctors, nurses, electricians, etc. "Something that most black people don t get hip to is reading & spelling, something I can't do right now." The Champ says he failed his 1st two Army exams; "they said I was mentally unable until they heard I was a Muslim, then I was smart but before that they didn't want me." "I told you I was the greatest, not the smartest." Nikki Giovanni closes segment, saying the Muhammad Ali is "a wonderful image to us all" & "an inspiration."
Soul! Ep 56 (414) - The Delfonics "Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time"
FOR FULL PERFORMANCE WITH AUDIO, PLEASE CONTACT WPA. Nikki Giovanni introduces The Delfonics (Wilbert Hart, William Hart, Major Harris). The Delfonics, wearing matching orange & black outfits, perform the timeless sweet soul ballad, "Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time" (live).
Soul! Ep 56 (414) - The Delfonics "The Love That I Gave To You"
The Delfonics perform the soul ballad "The Love That I Gave to You." At outset, panning MSs African American audience applauding. Nikki Giovanni thanks The Delfonics.
Soul! Ep 56 (414) - Nikki Giovanni "Gemini"
Nikki Giovanni reads excerpt from her book "Gemini." Cutaways of African American audience listening intently to the harsh tale of a door stolen from a home in Africa for display in a white museum & how it relates to the stark reality of modern black life. "I really like to think a black, beautiful, loving world is possible."
Soul! Ep 56 (414) - Close
Nikki Giovanni closes show, thanks Muhammad Ali, the Delfonics, Judy Deering, & Miriam Makeba. "Peace to you & power to the people." Nikki Giovanni introduces Miriam Makeba. Miriam Makeba performs unidentified Afro-pop ballad, black man playing gourd lyre in FG. Credits eventually roll.
Soul! Ep 53 - Open
Funky Soul! Opening with VO by Joe Dennis. Soul! Producer Ellis Haizlip introduces program, James Baldwin & Nikki Giovanni from Soul studio in New York City.
Soul! Ep 53 - James Baldwin Interview
James Baldwin discusses w/ Nikki Giovanni his extended stays in Europe, saying that he moved to Paris in 1948 b/c he was trying to become a writer & couldn't find the "stamina" or "corroboration" in the United States, returning to NYC in 1957. "I'm condemned to live in the world." "It's very valuable to be forced to move from one place to another & deal w/ another set of situations." Television studio; table with alcohol and drinks between Giovanni and Baldwin.
Soul! Ep 53 - James Baldwin Interview
James Baldwin takes a sip of tea, then discusses w/ Nikki Giovanni his 1949 essay "Everybody's Protest Novel." "If I wrote that essay today I would be writing a very different essay out of a very different problem." "It's not the world that was my oppressor only. What the world does to you, if it does it long enough & effectively enough, you begin to do it to yourself. You become an accomplice of your own murderers. They think it's important to be white then you think it's important to be white." "The danger of your generation is to substitute one romanticism for another. These categories are commercial categories." "The standards that almost killed you are really mercantile standards that are based on profits which the church sanctifies. It's when you begin to realize all of that that you begin to break out of the culture which has produced you & discover the culture that has really produced you." Baldwin holds a cigarette.
Soul! Ep 53 - James Baldwin Interview
Nikki Giovanni says to James Baldwin that the thinking among blacks during the civil rights movement was that they assumed they knew white people. James Baldwin smokes cigarette, says that Americans are astonished to find out that the rest of the world doesn't like them. Nikki Giovanni says, "You all can have Jesus, give me the world. Even though it's polluted, dirty, ugly, give it to me. I will take it."
Soul! Ep 53 - James Baldwin Interview
James Baldwin says he left the church when he was 17, that he respected & loved Martin Luther King Jr., & that white people have lost the ability to love their children. "The word morals is misleading. Power without some sense of oneself is another kind of sterility. And the black people will become exactly what the white people have become." CU cigarette burning between Mr. Baldwin's fingers. "My point of view is that it's about the children." Nikki Giovanni says that for blacks, being able to say that one doesn't like white people was liberating. Sideview CU James Baldwin smoking cigarette.
Soul! Ep 53 - James Baldwin Interview
Nikki Giovanni admits a "parochial" or provincial world view (more concerned w/ life & condition of African-Americans than her third world brothers & sisters). James Baldwin says, "A cop is a cop." Nikki & James discuss their obvious opinions of the police. James lights Nikki's cigarette before lighting one for himself. Mr. Baldwin says "I don't care what happens to J. Edgar Hoover & his tribe. But I do care what happens to you (Nikki). The relationship between morality & power is a very subtle one."
Soul! Ep 53 - James Baldwin Interview
James Baldwin: "We're not obliged to accept the world's definitions. Just b/c white people says they're white, we're not obliged to believe it. We need to make our own definitions & begin to rule the world that way. Because kids, white & black, cannot use what they've been given. They're rejecting it. Nobody wants to become the President of Pan Am or the Governor of California or Spiro Agnew. The kids want to live." "The key is love." Nikki Giovanni says she digs the culture, not the theology of the church. James Baldwin says blacks took Jesus & made him into their own, providing him w/ a new identity. Mr. Baldwin says that God for white people is "some metaphor for purity & safety." "Why does the son of God got to born immaculately? Aren't we all the sons of God? That's the blasphemy." "God is our responsibility. God's only hope is us. If we don't make it, he ain't gonna either."
Soul! Ep 53 - James Baldwin Interview
Nikki Giovanni & James Baldwin discuss the roles of sex & love within the black community. James Baldwin says sex isn't the problem, love is. "The black man is forbidden by definition to assume the roles, burden, duties & joys of being a man."
Soul! Ep 53 - James Baldwin Interview
James Baldwin discusses the overbearing, inhuman & ultimately maddening silence his father had to assume simply b/c he was black & had no other choice than to endure the rampant racism of the time in America. Mr. Baldwin grows adamant, enraged with "the spiritual disaster." Nikki Giovanni says she can't understand violence committed by the black man against his own family after being mistreated by the white man. CU cigarette burning between fingers of Mr. Baldwin. CU active hands of Ms. Giovanni.
Soul! Ep 53 - James Baldwin Interview
James Baldwin on anger transference: "A man comes home. He is in a situation he cannot control. He is a human being. It's got to come out somewhere." "They got you by the throat & by the balls. Of course it comes out. Where would it come out? It comes out on the person closest to you. One cannot be romantic about human nature." "I know that a great deal of what passes for black militancy is nothing but a fashion." Nikki Giovanni & James Baldwin chat about love & manhood, smoke cigarettes.
Soul! Ep 53 - James Baldwin Interview
James Baldwin on anger transference: "Let's say I'm King Oliver. I'm a pretty good musician. And somebody called, say, Bing Crosby, who couldn't carry a tune from here to here-- now, I watch this little white boy become a millionaire many times over. I can't get a job. Time goes on & you get more weary & since you cannot get a job your morale is destroyed & the body begins to fail you, and your death approaches, all b/c being a man you've never been able to execute what a man ought to be able to do." "How am I going to love anybody except in such an awful pain & rage that nobody can bear it? I'm not trying to defend it, I'm trying to make you see it."
Soul! Ep 53 - James Baldwin Interview
Nikki Giovanni discusses the absent father syndrome w/in modern black culture & the need for a constantly present father/lover w/in the family. James Baldwin: "The standards of civilization into which you are born are first outside of you. By the time you become a man they are inside of you. If you are treated a certain kind of way you become a certain kind of person." "In this civilization a man who cannot support his wife & child is not a man. The black man has always been treated as a slave & of course he reacts that way." "Life is short, it really is. It's important to not get hung-up on any given detail b/c it is there." Mr. Baldwin says love is irrational while Ms. Giovanni insists that it must be rational.