{"id":21416,"date":"2026-07-08T13:29:49","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T18:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=21416"},"modified":"2026-07-08T13:29:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T18:29:52","slug":"the-song-of-hiawatha-joins-the-u-s-film-festival-circuit-music-documentary-featuring-patti-smith-and-iggy-pop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=21416","title":{"rendered":"THE SONG OF HIAWATHA\u00a0JOINS THE U.S. FILM FESTIVAL CIRCUIT MUSIC DOCUMENTARY FEATURING PATTI SMITH AND IGGY POP"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"662\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MUSIC-DOCUMENTARY-FEATURING-PATTI-SMITH-AND-IGGY-POP-662x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21417\" style=\"width:436px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MUSIC-DOCUMENTARY-FEATURING-PATTI-SMITH-AND-IGGY-POP-662x1024.jpg 662w, https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MUSIC-DOCUMENTARY-FEATURING-PATTI-SMITH-AND-IGGY-POP-194x300.jpg 194w, https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MUSIC-DOCUMENTARY-FEATURING-PATTI-SMITH-AND-IGGY-POP.jpg 665w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 662px) 100vw, 662px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NEW YORK, July 8, 2026 \u2014 THE SONG OF HIAWATHA: The Life and High Times of the First Black Hippie is now screening at film festivals across the United States, bringing audiences the remarkable story of Hiawatha Bailey \u2014 political activist, musician, and a countercultural figure recognized as the first Black hippie. The film is set to premiere on August 9, 2026 at the Austin Film Society in conjunction with the Sound Unseen Film Festival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The feature-length documentary traces Bailey\u2019s journey from the Great Migration to Detroit in the 1950s to his emergence in the radical and artistic underground of the 1960s and 1970s. Along the way, he became the only Black member of the White Panther Party, served a four-year prison term, and later formed the punk band Cult Heroes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The film features appearances by Hiawatha Bailey, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Wayne Kramer, John Sinclair, Cheetah Chrome, Leni Sinclair, Niagara Detroit, Pun Plamondon, David Fenton, Maxi Chanel, John Brannon, and others, and draws on rare archival material including never-before-seen photographs and historic documents. Its soundtrack includes music by The MC5, The Rationals, Cult Heroes, Static, Pure Hell, and original scoring by Elan Portnoy of The Fuzztones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Through a vividly psychedelic visual style, THE SONG OF HIAWATHA explores race, music, radical politics, sexual identity, prison, and the making of an American original, offering a fresh look at the intersections of counterculture, punk, and political history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"nv-iframe-embed\"><iframe title=\"TRAILER - The Song of Hiawatha\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1114218192?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cA beautiful and enlightening film\u2026 a fast-paced, captivating, wild ride.\u201d \u2014 Jesse Malin, musician<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cA real educational and inspirational experience\u2026 I believe it is a triumph.\u201d \u2014 Matt Pinfield, syndicated rock radio host<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHiawatha is a shapeshifting everything \u2014 hippy radical, punk, queer visionary.\u201d \u2014 Carlo McCormick, culture critic<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cA compelling, psychedelic documentary. It\u2019s time we all \u2018got Hi.\u2019\u201d \u2014 Steve Bloom, Rolling Stone \/ High Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">About the filmmakers<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Produced by Steven Blush, writer-producer of the Sundance-premiered American Hardcore, and directed by Jeffrey Wengrofsky, whose work has focused on underground cultural figures, The Song of Hiawatha marks Wengrofsky\u2019s first feature film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK, July 8, 2026 \u2014 THE SONG OF HIAWATHA: The Life and High Times of the First Black Hippie is now screening at film festivals across the United States, bringing audiences the remarkable story of Hiawatha Bailey \u2014 political activist, musician, and a countercultural figure recognized as the first Black hippie. The film is&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=21416\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">THE SONG OF HIAWATHA\u00a0JOINS THE U.S. FILM FESTIVAL CIRCUIT MUSIC DOCUMENTARY FEATURING PATTI SMITH AND IGGY POP<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21418,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21416\/revisions\/21418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}