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  • All About History

    REVIEWS

    May 20, 2021 6 minutes
    Reviews by Jessica Leggett, Callum McKelvie, Catherine Curzon

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    THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY

    Andra Day shines as the legendary jazz singer in this chaotic biopic

    Certificate: 15 Director: Lee Daniels Cast: Andra Day, Trevante Rhodes, Garrett Hedlund Released: Out now

    Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit, first recorded in 1939, is a protest song that graphically describes the lynching of Black Americans in the Southern United States. Bringing the horrors of racial violence to mainstream attention, it was deemed un-American by the United States government and led to attempts to silence Holiday.

    Lee Daniels’ The United States vs. Billie Holiday – which is based on the book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari – concentrates on the last dozen years of Holiday’s life as she’s targeted by FBI agent Harry J Aslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.

    As part of his ‘war on drugs’, Aslinger targets Holiday for her drug addiction, sending in Black federal

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