Academy Award® winner Viola Davis is bringing the life and times of blues music pioneer Ma Rainey to the small screen in the new Netflix drama Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. It premieres on December 18.
Tensions and temperatures rise over the course of an afternoon recording session in 1920s Chicago as a band of musicians await trailblazing performer, the legendary “Mother of the Blues,” Ma Rainey (Davis). Late to the session, the fearless, fiery Ma engages in a battle of wills with her white manager and producer over control of her music. As the band waits in the studio’s claustrophobic rehearsal room, ambitious trumpeter Levee (Chadwick Boseman) — who has an eye for Ma’s girlfriend and is determined to stake his own claim on the music industry — spurs his fellow musicians into an eruption of stories revealing truths that will forever change the course of their lives.
Adapted from two-time Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, the movie celebrates the transformative power of the blues and the artists who refuse to let society’s prejudices dictate their worth. Directed by George C. Wolfe and adapted for the screen by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, the film is produced by Fences Oscar® nominees Denzel Washington and Todd Black.
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom also stars Colman Domingo, Glynn Turman, Michael Potts, Taylour Paige and Dusan Brown along with Grammy® winner Branford Marsalis, who produced the film's score.
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