Fortunately for us, he battled through cancer to give the world one last great performance in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” That would have been enough for me, but this Netflix film proves so ...

“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” Wilson’s 1984 play about a recording session in Chicago in the 1920s, both dramatizes and expresses that duality. Absurdities and frustrations abound, and the ...

The black bottom is a dance that white flappers appropriated from Black Southerners in the 1920s. This makes "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" a double entendre; it's about the dance, but it's also ...

Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman astonish in August Wilson's timelier-than-ever study of Black culture’s influence on popular American music. In “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” introductions ...

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom was August Wilson's first Broadway hit — and a preamble to his cycle of award-winning plays about the African-American experience across the 20th Century that included ...

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom on Netflix ends—as many films based on a true story tend to—with a photo montage of the real-life characters depicted on screen. But this particular based-on-a-true ...

In recent historical features about the Black experience in America — like "12 Years A Slave," "Hidden Figures" and even biopics like "Ray" and "Ali" — racism and oppression are through-lines ...

Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) wants her Coca-Cola, or she's not gonna sing. Never mind that this recording session during the sweltering Chicago summer of 1927 is already running behind because she and ...

The nominations for the 3rd Annual Latino Entertainment Journalists Association (LEJA) Awards have been announced with “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “Nomadland” leading. “Ma Rainey ...

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' is a heartbreaking, intricately told story featuring a career-best turn by the late Chadwick Boseman. by Robert Yaniz Jr. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a slice-of-life ...

August Wilson's first major play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom takes place over a single day in 1927, in a Chicago recording studio. Singer Ma Rainey (Whoopi Goldberg) has taken some time off from ...

Viola Davis burns a hole in the screen projecting the indomitable pride and hard-won self-worth of the legendary early 20th century blues singer named in the title of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom ...