Todd Anthony Shaw, better known by his stage name Too Short, is an American rapper. A pioneer of West Coast hip hop, Shaw was among the first acts to receive recognition in the genre during the late 1980s. His lyrics were often based on pimping and promiscuity, but also drug culture and street survival; exemplified respectively in his most popular singles "Blow the Whistle" and "The Ghetto." He is one of few acts to have worked with both Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. during the height of their respective careers.
Charles Quinton Murphy was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He was best known as a writer and cast member of the Comedy Central sketch-comedy series Chappelle's Show as well as the co-star of the sitcom Black Jesus. He was the older brother of actor and comedian Eddie Murphy.
The Mack is a 1973 American blaxploitation crime drama film directed by California native Michael Campus, starring Max Julien and Richard Pryor. The film also stars Oscar-nominee Juanita Moore and Tony-nominated actor Dick Anthony Williams. Filmed in Oakland, California the movie follows the rise and fall of Goldie, who returns from a five-year prison sentence to find that his brother is involved in Black nationalism. Goldie decides to take an alternative path, striving to become the city's biggest pimp.
Rudolph Frank Moore, known as Rudy Ray Moore, was an American comedian, singer, actor, and film producer. He created the character Dolemite, the pimp from the 1975 film Dolemite and its sequels, The Human Tornado and The Dolemite Explosion. The persona was developed during his early comedy records. The recordings often featured Moore delivering profanity-filled rhyming poetry, which later earned Moore the nickname "the Godfather of Rap." Actor and comedian Eddie Murphy portrayed Moore in the 2019 film Dolemite Is My Name.
I'm Gonna Git You Sucka is a 1988 American blaxploitation parody film written, directed by and starring Keenen Ivory Wayans in his directorial debut. Featured in the film are several noteworthy African-American actors who were part of the genre of blaxploitation: Jim Brown, Bernie Casey, Antonio Fargas and Isaac Hayes. It co-stars John Vernon, Kadeem Hardison, Ja'net Dubois, John Witherspoon, Damon Wayans, Clarence Williams III and Chris Rock, and acts as the film debuts of comedian Robin Harris and brothers Shawn and Marlon Wayans.
Big Money Hustlas is a 2000 American comedy film directed by John Cafiero as his feature film debut. The film, a homage to exploitation films of the 1970s, focuses on a streetwise San Francisco detective who tries to take down a New York City crime lord. It stars Insane Clown Posse's Joseph "Violent J" Bruce and Joseph "Shaggy 2 Dope" Utsler, and Twiztid's Jamie Madrox and Monoxide Child, and features appearances by Harland Williams, Johnny Brennan, Rudy Ray Moore, Mick Foley and the Misfits. Released direct-to-video, the film debuted at #1 on Billboard's Top Music Videos chart, and was later certified platinum by the RIAA. A Western genre follow-up, Big Money Rustlas, was released direct-to-video on August 17, 2010. In 2015, Insane Clown Posse announced the production of a sequel entitled Big Money Thrusters.
Hy Pyke was an American character actor.
Craig Brewer is an American filmmaker. His 2005 movie Hustle & Flow won the Audience Award at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and achieved commercial success, along with an Academy Award for Best Original Song, "It's Hard out Here for a Pimp". He is also known for directing the 2011 remake of Footloose, the 2019 film Dolemite Is My Name and the 2021 film Coming 2 America; the latter two starring Academy Award–nominee Eddie Murphy.
Willie Dynamite is a 1973 American blaxploitation film directed by Gilbert Moses and starring Roscoe Orman, Diana Sands, Thalmus Rasulala, Joyce Walker, and was released by Universal Pictures. The eponymous Willie Dynamite is a pimp in New York City, who strives to be number one in the city. As he is trying to do so, a social worker named Cora, is trying to change his ways - as well as those of the women who work for him - for the better. It was the first film produced by the Zanuck-Brown Company.
The Human Tornado is a 1976 American blaxploitation film directed by Cliff Roquemore. The film is a sequel to Dolemite.
The Players Ball is an annual gathering of pimps, held in Chicago, Illinois. Other Players Balls take place across the country, most notably in Miami and Atlanta. Presently, there are "Players Ball" events in Las Vegas and Memphis, Tennessee. On December 16-18th 2011, a Players Ball was hosted in Hollywood, California.
Boss'n Up, a musical film inspired by Snoop Dogg's album R&G : The Masterpiece, debuted on 6 December 2005. The film was released in DVD format, and was the first film made under Snoop Dogg's newly-founded production company Snoopadelic Films.
"Doggy Dogg World" is the third and final single from American rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg's debut album, Doggystyle (1993). It is the first European-only release with an American video TV-play. It features 1970s-era classic R&B and soul group The Dramatics, with guest rap verses from Kurupt and Daz Dillinger.
D'Urville Martin was an American actor in both film and television. He appeared in numerous 1970s movies in the blaxploitation genre. He also appeared in two unaired pilots of what would become All in the Family as Lionel Jefferson. Born in New York City, Martin began his career in the mid-1960s and soon appeared in prominent films such as Black Like Me, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and Rosemary's Baby. Martin also directed films in his career, including Dolemite, starring Rudy Ray Moore.
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s, when the combined momentum of the civil rights movement, the black power movement, and the Black Panthers spurred African American artists to reclaim the power of depiction of their ethnicity, and institutions like UCLA to provide financial assistance for African American students to study filmmaking. This combined with Hollywood adopting a less restrictive rating system in 1968. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president of the Beverly Hills–Hollywood NAACP branch. He claimed the genre was "proliferating offenses" to the black community in its perpetuation of stereotypes often involved in crime. After the race films of the 1940s and 1960s, the genre emerged as one of the first in which black characters and communities were protagonists, rather than sidekicks, supportive characters, or victims of brutality. The genre's inception coincides with the rethinking of race relations in the 1970s.
Petey Wheatstraw is a 1977 American blaxploitation comedy film written and directed by Cliff Roquemore, and starring comedian Rudy Ray Moore alongside Jimmy Lynch, Leroy Daniels, Ernest Mayhand, Ebony Wright, and Wildman Steve Gallon. It is typical of Moore's other films from the same era, such as Dolemite and The Human Tornado.
"Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" is a 1971 single written and produced by Tony Hester and performed by The Dramatics. The rhythm charts, strings and horns were arranged by Johnny Allen. The tracks were recorded at United Sound Recording Studio in Detroit, Michigan.
Blaxploitation horror films are a genre of horror films involving mostly black actors. In 1972, William Crain directed what is considered to be the first blaxploitation horror film, Blacula.
Dolemite Is My Name is a 2019 American biographical comedy film directed by Craig Brewer and written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. The film stars Eddie Murphy as filmmaker Rudy Ray Moore, who is best known for having portrayed the character of Dolemite in both his stand-up routine and a series of blaxploitation films, which started with Dolemite in 1975.
William Clifford Brown, who went by the name Big Brown, was a mid-twentieth century American street poet, performer, and recording artist. Prominent among the Beats in New York City from the late 1950s to the late 1960s, his distinctive language and style influenced a number of artists and musicians, including Bob Dylan, who declared Brown's to be the best poetry he had ever heard. Brown also influenced the later genres of hip hop and rap. In 1973, after moving to California, he recorded an album, The First Man of Poetry, Big Brown: Between Heaven and Hell, produced by Rudy Ray Moore. Brown was murdered in Los Angeles seven years later.
