Melvin Van Peebles – filmmaker, author, playwright, and … believe it or not, newest Stones Throw recording artist. Last night in Los Angeles, Melvin Van Peebles publicly announced his next project – a double album with Madlib to be released on Stones Throw. The first half of the album will be his own Brer Soul Meets Quasimoto and the second half will be the Madlib Invazion remix. This is being planned a 2 disc set released together in one package.
Mr. Van Peebles was in Los Angeles for an LA Film Festival screening of a new documentary covering his life story, “How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)”. He has recorded several albums released on A&M, Stax, and Capitol Records, worked as a journalist in France, cable car conductor in San Francisco, a trader on the floor of the new York Stock Exchange, but he’s perhaps best known for his landmark film, “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasss Song” (1971). The making of “Sweetback” was fictionalized recently in his son Mario Van Peebles’ film “Baadasssss!”.
Madlib is no stranger to remixing the voice of Melvin Van Peebles. If you’ve ever wondered who that guy is howling in the cuts of all those Quasimoto songs, we’ll give you one guess. A release date and track list for the Van Peebles/Madlib project will be coming later this summer.