Will Coloan Remixes Stevie Wonder’s “Black Man” As An Ode To Our Ancestors

More than 40 years after its premiere, Stevie Wonder’s song “Black Man” has been reimagined and given new meaning in 2020.

Producer Brennan Williams, aka Will Coloan, dropped the remix to the legendary singer’s 1976 tribute to black excellence with a video featuring an array of high achievers across history, from Revolutionary War hero Crispus Attucks to the late Chadwick Bozeman.

“Overall,” Coloan said, “my ultimate goal for the visual experience is to illuminate, inform, and affirm the grandeur of black men from many walks of life.”

The new single, which is available for free, includes a spoken word intro from Stevie himself and showcases the diversity of achievement among African-American men from Colonial Times to the present day.

The New Jersey native, a longtime journalist who recently served as the Senior Pop Culture Editor at Huffington Post Black Voices, taught himself to edit audiovisual material and said the song was a fixture in his music collection over the years. But Coloan said the tune took on a new meaning with the current state of the country, which is still reeling from a pandemic and a national reckoning on race.

The result, Coloann said, is “ an ode to our African ancestors.”

Check out the video above.

What do you think of the “Black Man” remix?