A world star of African music, Baaba Maal is a glamorous, ground-breaking musician, a showman, singer, dancer and story-teller. He brings an ancient music to a global audience in a new form: a fusion of West African classical music with Western contemporary rhythms and instruments. This film travels with Maal to his home town in Senegal to discover the influences and inspirations that have shaped his music. It is alive with his powerful, haunting vocals and mesmeric rhythms.
Wynton Marsalis
Considered one of the most technically brilliant players in the history of the trumpet, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis is also a master of classical music and a fine composer.
Marsalis takes the cameras with him around New York, to his home town of New Orleans, and to his rehearsal studios where he and his assembled band of musicians are seen putting together the album Blood on the Fields. He also talks about his music and his way of working. Shot in both colour and black and white.
New Generation Poets
This television anthology samples the work of twenty contemporary British poets and considers the function of poetry in today’s society. Poems are presented in an exciting, accessible and visually imaginative way, forming a vivid kaleidoscope of words and images.
Rap
This lively programme is an exploration into the world of rap and hip-hop, from ist origins in the streets and block parties of New York’s South Bronx, through the explosion of so-called Gangsta Rap in Los Angeles, to the global spread of rap music. Featured artists include Ice Cube, Public Enemy, Arrested Development and UFO.
Willy Russell
Willy Russell is driven by his desire to reach a wide audience and to tell a good story. His themes of escape, survival and the search for happiness have universal appeal and he has become hugely popular, with hits such as Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine and the musical Blood Brothers to his credit. Illustrated with extracts from his work, this programme centres on an interview with Russell, in which he describes his journey from failed schoolboy to successful writer.
Alice Walker
The African-American author of the internationally-acclaimed book The Color Purple has been a political activist for the civil rights and women’s movements since the early 1960s. Interviewed at the time of the publication of her controversial novel Possessing the Secret of Joy, Alice Walker discusses its subject – female genital mutilation. With archive film, dramatised extracts from the book and documentary sequences, this programme confronts a disturbing issue.