This list is inspired by this year's One Book One Denver selection, The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead.
One Book One Denver is an annual reading experience for adults that brings the city together through a shared story. Find out more about One Book One Denver programs, community gatherings, and author talks here!
See this list of music and movies in the library's catalog
Music | Movies
Summer of Soul (...or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is the soundtrack to the award-winning 2021 American independent documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. The second half of the title is taken from the 1970 poem and song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott-Heron. It offered a sharp and satirical critique of the media's lack of coverage of civil rights activism and the reality of change and revolution taking place in the streets and on campuses across America. Like the film footage, the live recordings did not have an official public release for more than 50 years. The album features 17 live renditions selected by the director of the film, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, performed over the course of the festival.
This double-CD reissue documents a central aspect of the cultural environment of the Civil Rights Movement, acknowledging songs as the language that focused people's energy. These 43 tracks are a series of musical images, of people in conversation about their determination to be free. Many of the songs were recorded live in mass meetings held in churches, where people from different life experiences came together in a common struggle. These freedom songs draw from spirituals, gospel, rhythm and blues, football chants, blues, and calypso forms.
Featuring masterful new arrangements of some of his classic compositions, Mulatu Plays Mulatu finds Ethio-jazz pioneer Mulatu revisiting the sounds that helped to change the face of Ethiopian music during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Intricately balancing Western jazz arrangements with the rich sounds of traditional Ethiopian instruments including the krar, masenqo, washint, kebero and begena. Throughout the album, he reshapes familiar material with rich textures, expanded improvisations and a deepened rhythmic complexity, creating a body of work that feels as vital and contemporary as it does steeped in tradition.
Ray Charles was a brilliant, towering musical figure who through his singing and piano playing helped invent soul and R&B music. This expansive collection contains material previously released from 1960-2006, while disc six features all previously unreleased tracks. This set is accompanied by an illustrated 38-page book with performance notes by Valerine Ervin, A. Scott Galloway, and Quincy Jones.
Gulf Coast roots guitarist and lap steel maestro Damon Fowler's swampy mix of blues, bayou R&B, country, rockabilly, sacred steel, and swing is in full force on his sixth album, Sounds of Home, which was produced by Tab Benoit and recorded at Whiskey Bayou Studios in Houma, Louisiana. Aside from Elvis Costello's "Alison," Johnny Winter's "TV Mama," and a charming version of the traditional "I Shall Not Be Moved," it features all original compositions.
Rhiannon Giddens's follow-up to her highly acclaimed solo debut, Tomorrow Is My Turn, is more raw and personal with a mix of original tunes, traditional songs, and two songs from the civil rights era.
To Pimp a Butterfly is the third studio album by American rapper Kendrick Lamar. It features guest appearances by Thundercat, George Clinton, Bilal, Anna Wise, Snoop Dogg, James Fauntleroy, Ronald Isley, and Rapsody. Primarily a hip-hop album, it also incorporates numerous other musical styles, most prominently jazz, funk, and soul. Lyrically, it features political commentary and personal themes concerning African-American culture, racial inequality, depression, and institutional discrimination. This thematic direction was inspired by Lamar's tour of historic sites during his visit to South Africa, such as Nelson Mandela's jail cell on Robben Island. It earned Lamar seven nominations at the 2016 Grammy Awards, including a win for Best Rap Album and an Album of the Year nomination.
Known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, and political commentary, folk musician Phil Ochs’ The Early Years features seven recordings he made for a Vanguard compilation in 1964 and twelve made at three Newport Folk Festivals in 1963, 1964, and 1966. The latter tracks were previously released on the 1996 compilation Live at Newport. The songs are all in the vein of Ochs' first two albums, focusing on human and civil rights stories seemingly pulled from Newsweek.
The Ronettes were a legendary '60s trio, led by the inimitable Ronnie Spector, who embodied all that was cool about the girl group aesthetic. Be My Baby: The Very Best of the Ronettes contains 18 perfectly crafted pop gems featuring massed pianos, guitars, string arrangements by Jack Nitzsche, tons of layered percussion, and huge washes of echo. It features instrumentation from the West Coast’s best session players (the so-called “Wrecking Crew”) and showcases producer Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” recording technique.
Sad and Beautiful World is the fourteenth solo studio album by American R&B and gospel singer Mavis Staples. Composed almost exclusively of covers, it was produced by Brad Cook and features songwriting credits from Allison Russell, Andrew Hozier-Byrne, Curtis Mayfield, David Rawlings, Eddie Hinton, Frank Ocean, Gillian Welch, Jack Rhodes, Malay, Kathleen Brennan, Kevin Morby, Leonard Cohen, Mark Linkous, Red Hayes, and Tom Waits. Critics observed that Sad and Beautiful World continues Staples' long‑standing engagement with themes of social conscience, resilience, and spiritual perseverance, emphasizing the album's themes balanced between sorrow and hope. Praised for its production style and emotional impact, it appeared on several best-of year-end lists in 2025 and the songs "Beautiful Strangers" and "Godspeed" each received awards at the 2026 Grammy Awards.
In 1990, commissioned by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, veteran music film director Robert Mugge and renowned music scholar Robert Palmer ventured deep into the heart of the North Mississippi Hill Country and Mississippi Delta to seek out the best rural blues acts currently working. Starting on Beale Street in Memphis, they headed south to the juke joints, lounges, front porches, and parlors of Holly Springs, Greenville, Clarksdale, Bentonia, and Lexington. Along the way, they visited celebrated landmarks and documented talented artists cut off from the mainstream of the recording industry. The resulting film expresses reverence for the rich musical history of the region, spotlighting local performers, soon to be world-renowned, thanks in large part to the film, and demonstrating how the blues continues to thrive in new generations of gifted musicians.
Filmmaker Ryan Coogler makes his feature directorial debut with this drama centered on the tragic shooting of Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan), a vibrant 22-year-old Bay Area father who was senselessly gunned down by BART officers on New Year's Day in 2009, and whose murder sent shockwaves through the nation after being captured on camera by his fellow passengers.
Master documentary filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished. The result is a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, using Baldwin₂s original words and a flood of rich archival material. A journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter.
A timeless love story set in early 1970s Harlem involving newly engaged nineteen-year- old Tish and her fiance Fonny who have a beautiful future ahead. But their plans are derailed when Fonny is arrested for a crime he did not commit. Now the pair and their families must fight for justice in the name of love and the promise of the American dream.
"A young African-American man grapples with his identity and sexuality while experiencing the everyday struggles of childhood, adolescence, and burgeoning adulthood."--IMDb.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s historical struggle to secure voting rights for all people. A dangerous and terrifying campaign that culminated with an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1964.
Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
Four young friends from Hell's Kitchen get into trouble and are sent to reform school, where they are sexually abused by guards. Years later, two of the boys are seeking revenge and rely on the other two boys to protect them.
A stunning tribute to the resilience of Native people and their way of life, Sugarcane, the debut feature documentary from Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, is an epic cinematic portrait of a community during a moment of international reckoning. In 2021, evidence of unmarked graves was discovered on the grounds of an Indian residential school run by the Catholic Church in Canada. After years of silence, the forced separation, assimilation and abuse many children experienced at these segregated boarding schools was brought to light, sparking a national outcry against a system designed to destroy Indigenous communities. Set amidst a groundbreaking investigation, Sugarcane illuminates the beauty of a community breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma and finding the strength to persevere.
As young children, Lyna and Glen were taken from their homes and placed in church-run boarding schools. The trauma of this experience was made worse by years of physical, and emotional abuse, the effects of which persist.