IT was the early 1970s and the Black Power movement sparked a cultural awareness from Kinshasa to Kingston. A lot of that militancy was expressed in movies with bold titles like Every Nigger is a Star. This forgotten 1973 film starred Bahamian actor Calvin Lockhart and had an impressive soundtrack led by the title track written by Boris Gardiner. Every Nigger is a Star has been sampled by American rapper Kendrick Lamar for his song Wesley’s Theory.

The track is from Lamar’s album, To Pimp a Butterfly, which was released March 15. To Pimp a Butterfly debuted at number one on the Australian and United Kingdom national charts. The set knocked UK’s Grammy winner Sam Smith’s multi-platinum In The Lonely Hours off the top spot. Wesley’s Theory is number 76 in its first week on the UK Top 100. Gardiner co-wrote Every Nigger is a Star with his older brother Barrington. He learned last week of Lamar’s sampling from an executive at Jazzman Records, a British company that has the song and album Every Nigger on its books.

He said the movie was the brainchild of Eddie Knight and Teddy McCook (later president of the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association), co-owners of The Bronco, a Kingston nightclub where his band, the Boris Gardiner Happening, was resident. “They got together with Calvin Lockhart and decided to make this film. They asked me to write the music for it so my brother and I began writing some melodies,” Gardiner, 72, recalled. Gardiner was a respected session musician, having played on a number of hit songs including The Heptones’ Equal Rights and Nanny Goat by Larry and Alvin.

He also had hits as a singer with It’s so Nice to be With You and The Meaning of Christmas. Lockhart, touted in some quarters as the next Sidney Poitier, had starred in several wellreceived movies such as Cotton Comes to Harlem. He had a home in St Mary. Most of the musicians who worked on Every Nigger is a Star were members of the ‘Happening’ — drummer Paul Douglas, keyboardist Keith Sterling and percussionist Larry McDonald. Pianist Leslie Butler and saxophonist Cedric ‘I’m’ Brooks also played on the set which Gardiner described as “a collector’s item”. One of its songs, Ghetto Funk, reportedly did well in England and Ireland. It was another story with the movie. “The first night at Carib (cinema) was jam-packed, you couldn’t find space to walk.

The second night wasn’t even a handful,” said Gardiner. “It was poorly done, to tell the truth.” Deejay Big Youth, who appeared in the movie, did a version of the title song that was far more popular than Gardiner’s. Super Cat later borrowed its melody for his hit song, Cry fi de Youth. Calvin Lockhart quickly rebounded from the embarrassing Every Nigger is a Star.

He starred in the Sidney Poitier/Bill Cosby comedies, Let’s Do it Again and Uptown Saturday Night, both massively successful films in the United States and Jamaica. He died from complications of a stroke in 2007. Boris Gardiner had a big hit in 1986 with I Want Wake up With You, which topped the British national chart. He was awarded the Order of Distinction, Jamaica’s sixth highest honour, in 2006