Little Richard: I Am Everything

Lisa Cortés's 2023 documentary tells the Black and queer origins of rock and roll through Little Richard. The sound and stage identity Richard Penniman created directly interrogates the whitewashed account of American popular music: others sang his songs and grew rich, while he was pushed aside again and again for his race and his sexuality. The film's most honest quality is not hiding Richard's own contradiction: he moved back and forth all his life between his queer identity and his religious faith, several times leaving the stage to preach and repudiating his own past. Cortés presents this not as inconsistency but as a person at war with his own existence. John Waters, Mick Jagger and Billy Porter give testimony. Who it's for: viewers interested in rock history, queer cultural history and the question of credit in music. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a straightforward career summary, or who will object to the conflict between faith and sexuality being left unresolved.