Lyrics | Artists | Melvin Van Peebles

Melvin Van Peebles

Melvin Van Peebles was a maverick, self-made film producer, writer, artist, and playwright whose independent Blaxploitation films were a landmark of African-American cinema, accompanied by soundtracks that helped pave the way for early rap music. Born in the Southside of Chicago on August 21, 1932, Van Peebles wrote an article about his life working as a cable car driver in San Francisco, which turned into a novel and two homemade short films about his life. French cinephile Francois Langlois took him to work in Paris, where he put his stories to music, delivering spoken word rap...