The Black Godfather

The documentary tells the life of Clarence Avant. He started as a manager in the music business, founded a label, negotiated artists' contracts and over time became a man making things happen in the background not only in music but in film, television and politics. He never appeared on a stage himself; his work was getting other people through the door. The film describes how that network was built. Among those speaking are Quincy Jones, Babyface, Jim Brown and two former American presidents. That line-up is the film's strength and also its limit: the account is built on praise from beginning to end, there is not one critical voice, and the industry's own problems are left alone. Against that, it makes one thing clear: how weak Black artists stood at the contract table in the seventies, and that changing it required someone to stand in between. Reginald Hudlin directed.