Melvin Van Peebles was an American writer, actor and film director best known for his film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971).
I would advise against watching that movie since it’s historically significant but just not very good.
Instead, I advise to watch Classified X (1998), a film on African-American cinema and the African-American representation in Hollywood.
Pee Wee Ellis was an American composer, musician and saxophonist, best-known for co-writing “Cold Sweat” (1967) and “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud” (1968) with James Brown and writing “The Chicken” (1969).
Richard H. Kirk was an English musician working within electronic music. With Cabaret Voltaire, he released compositions such as “Nag Nag Nag” (1979).
Sylvano Bussotti was an Italian composer and poet known for such pieces as Five Piano Pieces for David Tudor (1959).
A piece of the “sheet music” of that composition is reproduced in A Thousand Plateaus (1980).
Clive Sinclair was an English entrepreneur and inventor.
He invented the first really cheap computer (ZX80) and one of the very first mass-produced electrical vehicles (Sinclair C5).
Nino Castelnuovo was an Italian actor best-known for Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964).
In my little universe, he is best-known for his part in Camille 2000 (1969).
Carl Bean was an American singer and activist known for interpreting “I Was Born This Way” in 1977.
That song is very much reminiscent of “I Am What I Am” (1983).
Both songs hint at the biological origin of homosexuality.
Jean-Paul Belmondo was a French actor known for his boxer’s nose and rubbery lips.
He is famous for breaking the fourth wall in the nouvelle vague film Breathless (1960); for his stunts and bravado in That Man from Rio (1964); and for painting his face blue in Pierrot le Fou (1965).
In the beginning of his career, he played in both art films and commercial films, later on he only followed the money and the popularity, flat out saying:
“I really prefer making adventure movies like Rio to the intellectual movies of Alain Resnais or Alain Robbe-Grillet.”–Jean-Paul Belmondo, The New York Times, 1964
Alemayehu Eshete was an Ethiopian singer.
Alemayehu Eshete opens the door to the Éthiopiques (1998-2017) series.