Show Documentary
Dig deep into the origin story of Black gospel music, coming out of slavery, blending with the blues tradition, and soaring to new heights during the Great Migration. From Mahalia to Kirk Franklin, in the last century, gospel music has become the dominant form of African American religious expression and provided a soundtrack of healing and uplift to those at the front lines of protest and change.
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Jesus Is King
Filmed during summer 2019, Jesus Is King brings Kanye West’s famed Sunday Service to life in the Roden Crater, visionary artist James Turrell’s never-before-seen installation in Arizona’s Painted Desert. This one-of-a-kind experience features songs arranged by West in the gospel tradition along with new music from his forthcoming album.
Amazing Grace
A behind-the-scenes documentary about the recording of Aretha Franklin's best-selling album finally sees the light of day more than four decades after the original footage was shot.
Sister Act
A Reno singer witnesses a mob murder and the cops stash her in a nunnery to protect her from the mob's hitmen. The mother superior does not trust her, and takes steps to limit her influence on the other nuns. Eventually the singer rescues the failing choir and begins helping with community projects, which gets her an interview on TV—and identification by the mob.
Detropia
Detroit’s story has encapsulated the iconic narrative of America over the last century – the Great Migration of African Americans escaping Jim Crow; the rise of manufacturing and the middle class; the love affair with automobiles; the flowering of the American dream; and now… the collapse of the economy and the fading American mythos.
Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme
From neighborhood ciphers to the most notorious MC battles, "Freestyle: the Art of Rhyme" captures the electrifying energy of improvisational hip-hop--the rarely recorded art form of rhyming spontaneously. Like preachers and jazz solos, freestyles exist only in the moment, a modern-day incarnation of the African-American storytelling tradition. Shot over a period of more than seven years, it is already an underground cult film in the hip-hop world. The film systematically debunks the false image put out by record companies that hip-hop culture is violent or money-obsessed. Instead, it lets real hip-hop artists, known and unknown, weave their story out of a passionate mix of language, politics, and spirituality.
Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
During the same summer as Woodstock, over 300,000 people attended the Harlem Cultural Festival, celebrating African American music and culture, and promoting Black pride and unity. The footage from the festival sat in a basement, unseen for over 50 years, keeping this incredible event in America's history lost — until now.
Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia
The true story of Mahalia Jackson, who began singing at an early age and went on to become one of the most revered gospel figures in U.S. history, melding her music with the civil rights movement.
Remember Me: The Mahalia Jackson Story
Follows the successful career of Jackson as well as her unique friendship and devotion to Martin Luther King Jr. and her unsung contribution to the Civil Rights Movement.
Blues Story
Blues Story presents an impressionistic history of one of the most lasting art forms America has ever produced - as told for the first time through the eyes of the artists who lived it. Combining exclusive interview and performance footage with vintage clips and the music of many Blues legends long gone, the history of this richly felt music is illuminated - from its African roots to its American urban expression - along with its profound place in our cultural heritage. The result is a rare, first-hand glimpse into the lives of these vanishing artists, and a moving, insightful and informative look into a music that continues to be loved by millions throughout the world.
The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel
With guidance from their mother, five siblings overcome humble beginnings to form the renowned gospel group the Clark Sisters.
Kirk Franklin's A Gospel Christmas
When Olivia, a young assistant pastor, gets assigned to be a lead pastor at a new church a month before Christmas, she's fearful she can't manage the transition, including getting the choir ready to open the town's annual Winter Jamboree. Banding together with her new congregation, Olivia discovers a new home for herself, and even finds a little Christmas romance along the way!
Welcome to Inspiration
Follow the true-to-life story lines of people searching for meaning in the midst of unfulfilled dreams, challenging circumstances and unexpected struggles.
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All You Need Is Love: The Story of Popular Music
A 17-part television documentary series on the history of modern pop music covering some of the many different genres that have fallen under the label of "popular music" between the mid-19th century and 1976, including folk, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley, vaudeville and music hall, musical theatre, country, swing, jazz, blues, R&B, rock 'n' roll and others.
First Peoples
A five-part series that features the latest research exploring how early humans evolved. See how the mixing of prehistoric human genes led the way for our species to survive and thrive around the globe. Archaeology, genetics and anthropology cast new light on 200,000 years of history, detailing how early humans became dominant.
BBQ with Franklin
Pitmaster Aaron Franklin takes a boisterous road trip of BBQ culture -- the people, the places and of course the food. Ten half hour episodes celebrate the traditions and storied histories passed down through the generations, as well as those breathing new life into this distinctly American culture.
Will
The wild story of young William Shakespeare's arrival onto the punk-rock theater scene in 16th century London -- the seductive, violent world where his raw talent faced rioting audiences, religious fanatics and raucous side-shows. It's a contemporary version of Shakespeare's life, played to a modern soundtrack that exposes all his recklessness, lustful temptations and brilliance.
Wu-Tang: An American Saga
In the early 1990s in New York, during the height of the crack cocaine epidemic, a visionary musician named Bobby Diggs aka The RZA begins to form a super group of a dozen young, black men, who will eventually rise to become one of the unlikeliest success stories in American music history.
Perry Mason
Set in 1932 Los Angeles, the series focuses on the origin story of famed defense lawyer Perry Mason. Living check-to-check as a low-rent private investigator, Mason is haunted by his wartime experiences in France and suffering the effects of a broken marriage. L.A. is booming while the rest of the country recovers from the Great Depression — but a kidnapping gone very wrong leads to Mason exposing a fractured city as he uncovers the truth of the crime.
America Beyond the Color Line
Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard's chair of Afro-American Studies, travels the length and breadth of the United States to take the temperature of black America at the start of the new century. He explores this rich and diverse landscape, social as well as geographic, and meets the people who are defining black America, from the most famous and influential to those at the grassroots.
Behind Every Man
Hosted by Melody Holt (Love & Marriage: Huntsville), the series’ star-studded lineup includes multi-platinum R&B artist Usher and his mother Jonnetta Patton, gospel music legend Kirk Franklin and his wife Tammy Franklin, multi-Grammy Award winner Ne-Yo and his wife Crystal Smith, artist multi-platinum selling artist Wyclef Jean and his wife Claudinette Jean and DJ and radio host DJ Envy and his wife Gia Casey
Hip Hop Uncovered
Set against 40 years of music history, this six-part documentary series takes a deep dive into the paradox of America’s criminalization of the genre and its fascination with the street culture that created it and still exists within it. Instead of telling the story of hip hop from the top down, this documentary tells the story from the streets up, as it reveals the untold story of how America’s streets helped shape hip hop culture from an expression of survival and defiance into music’s most dominant genre.
Rise of the Billionaires
The origin stories and turbulent journeys of the tech titans who shape our world. We track how tech became the dominant industry in the world, from the dawn of internet to the present day.
Fellow Travelers
Decades-long chronicle of the risky, volatile and steamy relationship between the charismatic and ambitious Hawk and the pious and idealistic Tim, two political staffers who fall in love at the height of the 1950s Lavender Scare. Through the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, the drug-fueled disco culture of the 1970s and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, the two men’s fiery affair only intensifies despite the constant threat of being exposed and losing everything.
Black Cake
Eleanor Bennett loses her battle with cancer, leaving her children a flash drive that holds untold stories of her journey from the Caribbean to America; the stories shock her children and challenge everything they know about their family's origin.
The Break Boys
One of breakdancing's most notorious crews, the Skill Brat Renegades, returns to the spotlight after a three-year break from competition. Follow their comeback as they try to rediscover their edge and find new heights of creative expression.
Way Down South
In the pre-Civil War South, a plantation owner dies and leaves all his possessions, including his slaves, to his young son. While the deceased treated his slaves decently, his corrupt executor abuses them unmercifully, beating them without provocation, and he is planning to sell off the father'e estate--including the slaves--at the earliest opportunity so he and his mistress can steal the money and move to France. The young boy doesn't want to sell his father's estate or break up an of the slave families, and he has to find someone to help him thwart the crooked executor's plans.