Mentor to me...from the day we met in 1971 in NYC to the day of his final wrap in 2021. How lucky am I.
 
When I arrived in NYC in 1969, my resume consisted of one line: "Corn detassler from Illinois." I knew nothing. Except that New York City was calling me.

Melvin, on the other hand, was already legend -- at the zenith of unprecedented success for a filmmaker, as the unstoppable creative and intellectual force who willed "SWEET SEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG" into being, against all odds. So he needed no resume. 
 
When Hollywood hired its first three Black directors ever -- in 1968 -- Melvin Van Peebles was one of them. Gordon Parks and Ossie Davis were the other two. Big as Big gets.
 
Yet, Mel was humble and totally dedicated, an artist through and through, with an innate social and political awareness ingrained into his DNA. Using that finely tuned GPS instrument inside him to navigate his cinematic journey through racist America, Mel didn't make films, he sculpted them -- into showcases for the very characters Hollywood had deemed unsuitable for the silver screen. Characters exactly like the SWEET SWEETBACK he breathed life into.





     

                                           




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Had there been an internet back then, Mel's explosive portrayal of SWEET SWEETBACK would definitely have broken the internet. Into a million pieces.

SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG was the very first film Mel chose to make outside of Hollywood's studio system. Once that decision was made, everything
else fell into place. He wrote it, directed it, produced it, and starred as SWEET SWEETBACK. 

But most importantly, Mel also owned it. All of it. Smartest move ever since
SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG, made on a shoestring budget utilizing guerrilla filmmaking strategies invented by Melvin, went on to gross more than
$20 million.

When Hollywood bosses more comfortable with closed doors tried to disparage
Melvin's success by labeling it Blacksploitation, Mel simply dismissed them, saying, "Hollywood has been exploiting Blacks forever. So who are they to label me
or my film?"
 
That response, plus Mel's refusal to appear before Hollywood's powerful Censorship Board, led to SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG getting slapped with an X rating. Back then, that was Hollywood's most sure-fire way to bring ruin to a film and its maker.

But Melvin had the jump on Hollywood. He not only knew his film's audience, he also knew where to find them, and what they would expect him to be wearing across his chest like a badge of honor -- a self-designed T-shirt emblazoned with "RATED-X by an all-White Jury."  








Guerrilla Filmmaker. Brilliant Strategist. And the Father of modern Black Cinema. All are titles Melvin earned. And deserves. 

Mel's body of work, constantly evolving in response to his experiences as a Black man in America, is also 'documentary' in the purest sense of that word. His lens -- whether a camera, or a pen, or the Broadway stage -- never flinches from reporting back to us on just how harrowing and gut wrenching of an experience being Black in America really is.

For example, check out the lyrics Mel wrote for JUST DON'T MAKE NO SENSE, a
cut on the album Mel created and recorded right after walking through the fire of SWEET SWEETBACK's BAADASSS SONG. Mel had so much to say to us at that point in his life, he was vomiting up words... AS SERIOUS AS A HEART ATTACK... for the album title, and lyrics for it that are as authentically tragic today as when they were written over 50 years ago, in 1971.

Those lyrics became the show stopper when they hit the Broadway stage a few months later. Because, as the lyrics say, it JUST DON'T MAKE NO SENSE: 

















On the album cover of AS SERIOUS AS A HEART ATTACK, the words Mel and SWEET SWEETBACK made famous -- "RATED-X by an all-White Jury" -- still weighed heavy across his chest.  Breaking Mel's heart, I always imagined.















That is the T-shirt Mel was wearing -- with those exact words on it -- the night he and I met for the first time. 


                            So how did Melvin & I meet?



Mel was downtown on Broadway, in rehearsal at the Ambassador Theatre for his musical AIN'T SUPPOSED TO DIE A NATURAL DEATH, set to premier October 20, 1971.

I was uptown in Harlem, backstage at the Apollo Theatre, with an executive from Polydor Records, James Brown's label at the time. That is when an adorable young man -- boy, really -- approached me and introduced himself, "I'm Mario Van Peebles. I think my dad would like you. Would you like to meet him?" 

Thirty minutes later, Mario was proudly introducing me to his father. No bodyguard in sight. No posse jockeying for position. No press. No manager or agent. Just Melvin. All alone, in the darkened theatre. With his Warrior Words. Mario. And Me.