Bazawule’s first hire was actually the choreographer Fatima Robinson, a veteran who has worked with everyone from Michael Jackson to Mary J. Blige, and who choreographed the 2006 movie musical “Dreamgirls.” Bazawule recalled watching her videos of Aaliyah, his friends stopping the tape over and over to copy the moves, when he was a teenager in Accra. “He always had such a regal reverence and a curiosity about dance from all over the world,” she said.
Her hip-hop and R&B pedigree is evident in swirling necks and shoulder crosses that connect TikTok dances to their 20th-century origins. Some of the songs were sped up to match her moves, Sanders said. Bazawule also had her choreography narrative scenes and help with the way the camera moves around the actors. “It’s always in a ballet with the narrative,” he said.
Bazawule is a multilink that started as a painter, then became a hip-hop performer. records as Blitz the Ambassador. (His name is Samuel; his stage name, he said, had a lot to do with his production style: “very fast and very flashy.”) But even he had trouble with the basic structure of a movie musical, incorporating songs into the action. “The biggest challenge was figuring out, how do you take this really big piece of music and make it cinematic?” he said.
He separated music into its three root genres – gospel, blues and jazz. And he brought new orchestrators for each: Ricky Dillard, Keb’ Mo’ and Christian McBride. (The original Broadway numbers are by pop and R&B songwriters Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray.) He also wrote songs for the film, including a work anthem for Mister’s (Corey Hawkins) son Harpo. “The goal was to make sure the music always spoke to each other,” he said, and was in harmony with a contemporary soundtrack.
His ambitions were evident from his first appearance to the producers, when he showed them a complete script he had drawn in pencil. During Bazawule’s presentation — via video during the coronavirus — “I literally texted Oprah,” Sanders recalled. “I went, ‘Oh my God, that’s the guy.’ And he wrote to me, “Yes, it is!”
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