James brown movie netflix cast

In many ways, James Brown defies comprehension. He performed relentlessly for nearly six decades, beginning in the early nineteen-fifties. When he put his shows together, he rehearsed every move, every step, every interlude. In front of an audience, however, he surged beyond calculation, and entered a region both frenzied and rapturous. Other R. & B. and soul performers may have had greater gifts (Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke) and some rock-and-roll stars may have been just as entertaining (Little Richard, before he found God), but no one else had Brown’s convulsive blend of musical genius and ecstasy. He was strong enough and shrewd enough to cast aside good taste; he screamed and grunted and, turning his head, telegraphed indecipherable messages to his backup players, all of it part of an unstoppable flow. He was an overwhelming talent, and also an overtly sexual presence onstage—something that whites did not see much of in black male celebrities in the fifties and the early sixties, before Muhammad Ali changed everything. For many in the audience (especially the

•