A new trailer for rock’n’roll pioneer Little Richard’s upcoming documentary film I Am Everything has been released.
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Released on Wednesday (March 15), the trailer for I Am Everything offers fans a look at the retrospective film that chronicles the late icon’s life and contributions to music, the queer community and more.
The film will feature archival footage from the legend’s career and personal life, as well as never-before-seen interviews with the man himself as well as new interview with musicians, his family and friends and Black and queer scholars – all of whom discuss his cultural impact.
Watch the trailer for I Am Everything below.
An official description for the film reads: “Little Richard: I Am Everything tells the story of the Black queer origins of rock n’ roll, exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman. Through a wealth of archive and performance that brings us into Richard’s complicated inner world, the film unspools the icon’s life story with all its switchbacks and contradictions.”
“In interviews with family, musicians, and cutting-edge Black and queer scholars, the film reveals how Richard created an art form for ultimate self-expression, yet what he gave to the world he was never able to give to himself. Throughout his life, Richard careened like a shiny cracked pinball between God, sex and rock n’ roll. The world tried to put him in a box, but Richard was an omni being who contained multitudes – he was unabashedly everything.”
Little Richard: I Am Everything is set to receive a single-day cinematic release on April 11 before being released on digital on April 21. Ticketing details for the film’s screening in the UK have yet to be announced.
Little Richard – born Richard Wayne Penniman – passed away in May 2020 after a battle with bone cancer. He was 87 years old.
An outpouring of tributes followed the “Tutti Frutti” singer’s death, including Paul McCartney, who remembered Little Richard “screaming into my life when I was a teenager” in his written tribute.
“I owe a lot of what I do to Little Richard and his style; and he knew it,” McCartney wrote. “He would say, ‘I taught Paul everything he knows.’ I had to admit he was right.”