Zaire ’74 was a three-day music festival that took place in Kinshasa in 1974. The event assembled America’s biggest rhythm and blues talents – including James Brown and the Mighty JBs, Bill Withers, B.B. King, and the Spinners – along with top African acts such as Miriam Makeba and Afrisa.
The festival was held in conjunction with the boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman known as the “Rumble in the Jungle”.
The promoters hired a team of esteemed documentary cameramen to film everything, including street life in Kinshasa, behind-the-scenes footage of the show being assembled and the excitement on the plane as salsa singer Celia Cruz leads the musicians in a jam session.
The crew masterfully recorded classic numbers such as Makeba’s The Click Song, King’s The Thrill Is Gone, and of course, Brown’s Soul Power. And then the footage sat unedited for over thirty years.
Using only unseen footage and no contemporary interruptions Soul Power documents the heady days when the musical crossover between Africa and America was just emerging.