(Los Angeles) The cowboys weren’t all white with a poncho on their back, insists Jay-Z, who hopes the new western he produced for Netflix, The Harder They Fall, will help to bring down these misconceptions about the mythical past of the United States.
The American rap star has recruited for this film an impressive cast of black artists, starring Idris Elba and Regina King, to embody very real characters who have marked the history of the Wild West.
Classic westerns, like the famous Dollar trilogy with Clint Eastwood, disregarded minorities. Yet nearly a quarter of cowboys were black, says the director of The Harder They Fall, Jeymes Samuel.
“Many would like this part of the story to remain veiled,” Jay-Z said at a virtual press conference Thursday.
Beyond entertainment, this film also has the virtue of “allowing people to be seen” while they have been ignored by history and traditional westerns shot in Hollywood, where white actors and characters dominate.
The music mogul, married to Beyoncé, claims to have learned a lot from this film in a personal capacity.
The feature film draws inspiration from a gallery of portraits of black and Native American cowboys and outlaws, such as Nat Love, Rufus Buck and Cherokee Bill, who lived in different places and times and therefore never could meet.
But Jay-Z believes that a more authentic or documentary approach “would have put people off” and at the same time diminished the impact of the film.
“You present it as ‘fiction’, but you slip in a number of very real things,” he explains.
The artist also insists on the role that the soundtrack can play: “You listen to the music, you hang on, you like the rhythm, and all this information is transmitted and penetrates your soul without even realizing it”.
For Jay-Z, rap and cinema are “similar” and both allow “telling great stories”.
He further notes that many elements of Hollywood westerns are totally out of touch with reality, for example the poncho worn by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone’s films.
It is therefore without qualms that he drew on very anachronistic influences for the music of The Harder They Fall, like reggae star Barrington Levy.
“You hear Barrington Levy and you say to yourself ‘Here, but this is not western music’ … But this is not the case with the Italian guitar in Oklahoma ! », Says Jay-Z.