VMP Magazine

The Blaxploitation era was the black answer to the exploitation and grindhouse film era that began in the early ’70s. It’s a genre that has passed the test of time due to being one of the early instances in which black actors and actresses got to star and create their own films—allowing these actors to play more than the servitude and slave roles they were often given. Blaxploitation films are not without controversy, as they often depicted characters who were pimps, thieves, hookers and vagrants; the counter to that, however, is that these characters were always the heroes against “The Man” who was trying to bring them down. The Blaxploitation era fostered a movement of black people making their own films and black actors playing more roles, but even more importantly, it led to some of the best music of the time. The soundtracks to these films featured artists such as Curtis Mayfield, Willie Hutch, Isaac Hayes and Marvin Gaye. Blaxploitation soundtracks contained the best music of the era; music that is still influencing and being used in modern music today. For this list, we explore the 10 best Blaxploitation soundtracks and what made them the perfect records they are.

If the name Gil Scott-Heron isn’t immediately familiar to you, his poetry undoubtedly will be. Scott-Heron, a blues and jazz poet who came to prominence in the 1970s through his soulful and incredibly biting social and political commentary, made one of the most famous poems of all time: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” An ingenious take on the mass consumerism and capitalist greed that ignored the very real anguish and uprisings happening in the fringes of society. A poem that has played a major influence in hip-hop/rap and, ironically, has been used in commercials and movie trailers as recently as this year (like the Black Panther trailer.

The music and poetry of Gil Scott-Heron is a snapshot into a country in turmoil: still shellshocked from the murders of MLK, Malcolm X and JFK, the Vietnam war and the universal trauma of inner city life. Heron’s work glides wildly between anger, condescension, sarcasm, sadness, gloom, vitriol and discomfort. Heron paints a vision of a lower class that has been pushed around too long and on the verge of erupting and it’s hard not to draw parallels to the struggles of 2017, as the country continues to tear itself apart.