By TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Tears were shed. I'm not going to lie, I cried. I thought I was just scrolling past a beautiful black and white photo of the 'Black Panther'. Not a memorial from his family. I broke down. No shame in it. Even in the middle of a Kawasaki train station in Japan. I just couldn't help myself. I remember when me and my good friend Steven got off a train early on our way to the airport (remember those?) to fly to New York, just so we could catch the first showing of the late, great Chadwick Boseman (how are we even saying this?) playing the late, great, Godfather of Soul, James Brown in the great 'Get On Up' biopic. It felt like history in the making. We just had to...and it was so worth it in a maverick performance of equal powerhouse for the music maestro. Coming in late as choppers flew round Vietnam like we'd walked into a showing of 'Apocalypse Now' instead, we saw just how crazy a talent Brown was and Boseman too. "Good God!" His moving, spirited performance and pivotal moment in Spike Lee's best of this year 'Da 5 Bloods' as a fallen soldier in the Vietnam war is even more poignant now. Coming off changing the game in his very first mainstream movie playing the first African American Major League Baseball player, Jackie Robinson whose '42' is retired around the whole association, diamond to diamond. Chadwick hadn't even become the Black Panther yet...but he was about to. Like Indiana Pacers Basketball star Victor Oladipo taking off in the Slam Dunk Contest wearing a Black Panther mask and then saluting T'Challa himself, courtside. And he was already something. Off one swing big movie that made two Englishmen more excited about New York than Sting, get off a train early like we where legal aliens. One microphone dropping sophomore set that showed the man Marvel put between the 'Civil War' of big stars Chris Evans (who called this "original" a, "deeply committed and constantly curious artist") and Robert Downey Jnr for a photo-op had something that even those two super actors didn't. Sure they're Captain America and Iron Man. But this guy was Jackie Robinson AND James Brown. And he was just getting started. I remember writing a 'Focus Future' feature on him in 2015 which I never continued for anyone else because he felt like the one. It feels like yesterday, not five years ago today. It feels too heartbreaking now as I said, "The pride of the panther is strong. It'll never fade to black."
Which just makes this even more heartbreaking in the most horrible year of our lives. 2020. We were supposed to roar in return like a Gatsby, but that decadence turned into desperation. From 24 to 42. We lost Kobe and GiGi in January. So many of our loved ones, friends, family, jobs and even our livelihoods to this cruel coronavirus disease that is still at large whilst we need to mask up, stay safe and stay home. The only time we really all took to the streets this year was because Black Lives Matter and after the senseless deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor (arrest the damn cops...I'll keep saying it until you do it) murdered in her own home, enough was enough. How many more for a nation continuing to hold the people that love it back? Screaming about a man taking a knee during the national anthem of a football game (in polite taking a stance respect may we add), but having no problem with a racist cop sticking his knee in a man's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds until he can't breathe anymore. To lose Chadwick, the 'Black Panther'-a hero and symbol to many-now just seems as cruel as those people that made derogatory comments about his weight in a Jackie Robinson tribute video. Sure they didn't understand what was going on, but maybe they should have tried a little understanding before they passed jokes and judgement for meaningless swipes and likes. The man was, is and will always be a legend who influenced far more than that. Where's the love? I remember when 'Black Panther' came out. It was a movement. A televised revolution on the big screen. People of all walks of life came out to cinemas like they wouldn't today to see a superhero that looked like none other before, but instead like all the kids looking up to him, searching for a hero. White children wore Black Panther costumes too. He broke down barriers. Changed futures. In the same time as 'Wonder Woman' wowed the world and flipped the comics and capes on the superhero genre, this one took off even more. As strong as vibranium as we all chanted, "Wakanda Forever", pounding our chests in symbolism like we do now for Boseman. Even before that his claws cutting into Cap's shield looked like something. His once, twice, three times a kick to Steve Rogers frisbee invoking a signature, "damn" response from a great girl I was seeing at the time, watching the 'Civil War' movie. Chadwick fought for the accent too. Claw and nail. Like he did against a deadly disease. All amazingly whilst powerfully portraying a formidable figure and being a greater one in the greater good of real life. The Black Panther suit in Prince purple hue absorbs pain and turns it into a rebounding power that hits back after your best shot. How poignant is that notion now in inspiration? By the time he disappeared in 'Infinity War', after his rich nation and land was the terrain that staged the final battle and reappeared in 'Endgame' the first face to greet Cap on his left, Boseman was a blockbuster star. His self character parody on Saturday Night Live's 'Black Jeopardy' was beyond hilarious too and showed he had the comedy cops like Karen the potato salad with no seasoning. Which makes it even more heartbreaking that the man with the infectious laugh, from LeBron James' 'Shop' talk on HBO to RDJ's shared social media posts was talking about working on a remake of 'Uptown Saturday Night' with Kevin Hart (as we can see in an episode of the comedians Netflix series, 'Don't F... This Up'). Chris Evans may have been the Captain. But remember who got that man a shield? He was the King. And even before he became T'Challa a fictional hero who carried more superhero solidarity to his people in the very Black Panther name, he was a biopic king. Playing real life heroes of history before becoming one himself as an icon of our times.
One of our generations greatest who was right with Jamie Foxx and where his 'Just Mercy' co-star Michael B. Jordan (who killed it as Killmonger in 'Black Panther') will be in about two movies time, behind the legendary likes of Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Samuel L. Jackson as not only one of the best black actors of all-time, but one of Hollywood's hallmark best, regardless of race in a world that should be colorblind, but still needs to know that all lives can't matter until all black ones do. Best like Oscar Isaac. Greatest like Brad Pitt. Legendary like Leo...once upon a time in Hollywood. But now sadly a tragic tale like Heath Ledger and his legendary Joker character. Already with so much done, but also with so much that should have come (he's about to co-star on August Wilson's 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' with Viola Davis on Netflix that will be emotional as it will be epic). True artists. Accomplished actors. Soulful performers now at peace. Like the Los Angeles Dodgers said in terrific tribute, "from playing legendary figures to becoming one". Chadwick Boseman passed away too soon at 43 years of age on the same day major league baseball celebrated the man he played for Jackie Robinson day. It seems as poignant as it does cruel. Just like the fact that this man who was privately married also fought his biggest battle behind the scenes as he had colon cancer and we didn't even know. Didn't know he was fighting this deadly disease, all whilst making movies like another amazing biopic of black brilliance in the supreme court of 'Marshall'...Thurgood Marshall, last years Russo Brothers backed '21 Bridges' 90's throwback and of course Spike Lee's 'Bloods' on Netflix. Not to mention all those Marvel movies (4 of them. Seven films total). Now that's heroic. All whilst fighting the cruelty of cancer and troll's body shaming comments online. "I want the player who's got the guts not to fight back", the legendary Harrison Ford told Chadwick's Jackie Robinson character in '42'. That's kind of the size of it here. But Boseman had the soul to fight cancer right to the end. All whilst fighting other fights like the one against racism. Like he did everytime he played a major man of history, like the first black judge elected to the Supreme Court, there was a 'Message From The King' like the chain of his Netflix movie. All the way to his campaign to claim Black Lives Mattered to Hollywood by demanding more diversity in the ignorant industry. If you want to know how bad its getting today just look to the scene in '42' when Jackie Robinson is being racially taunted and harassed by an opposing teams coach. Chadwick Boseman's acting after, screaming and breaking his bat to splinters in the players tunnel after maintaining his dignity and composure out in the field tells you everything you need to know about how disgusting that word and racism is and why still happening today, players from the NBA and WNBA boycotting game to baseball players leaving a 'Black Lives Matter' t-shirt on home plate after doing the same can't just, "shut up and dribble". Just like we will never stop shouting 'Wakanda Forever' for the one, true crown of the throne.
Rest Peacefully King.
Always and forever.
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