Aretha
Aretha wasn’t just the Queen of Soul, y’all — for realz.
Respect is the new biopic on the early career of Aretha Franklin. (This ain’t a revue. There will be no spoilers, which may be stating the obvious because it’s a documentary). I was floored learning how Aretha Franklin had to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to sing in the style she wanted—the style that change the fucking world. I was like, WTF!
Aretha’s father, renown minister C. L. Franklin, was the first to stifle her and did it tyrannically. C. L. was a big time preacher who provided counsel to the likes of Martin Luther King and them. He managed Aretha’s career from parading her at star-studded house parties before the likes of Sam Cooke, to putting her on revival tours. He made a ritual of slapping her down at every attempt to be independent or exercise her own voice.
With Columbia Records trying to “Whiten” her up, Aretha didn’t manage a single hit. She resistingly followed every direction from men around her. The more she struggled the more oppression they laid on. Only after walking away from all that shit—family, a major record label, boyfriends and husbands—was Aretha free to sing the music of her soul, when her “masters” had heard that miracle noise coming from her and said, “No!”
I cried drizzled all up in my popcorn—snot-sucking tears. I wouldn’t get out of my seat until everyone else had gone. My makeup was a Monet. The movie was honoring people outside the narrow (narrow, narrow, narrow) margins society sanctions. For me it was all the resisting fear and threat to be able to live (and love and look) a vision. Fighting for fundamental sovereignty, Aretha became Queen of Soul. Note to self: Do that!
