The name, logo and the original slogan “Pushing Scandinavian Rock to the Man!” was inspired by blaxsploitation movies from the early 70’s like Superfly, Foxy Brown and Dolemite.
Starting around the 1960s to the 1970s, a new style of film arose, called Blaxploitation.
The second series introduced new characters including Blaxploitation Pope, who is Lucius T. Kool III, a ghetto brother and leader of the Catholic Church; President Umbukele, who is an expert in diplomacy and acquiring foreign aid, but then spends it all on silly things; bad influence Granddad; and a family of animated polar bears with Brummie accents, who live at Dudley zoo.
Organizations such as the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Urban League condemned these films, and formed the Coalition Against Blaxploitation.
Commonly considered a blaxploitation film, the plot centers on Moore's character, a retired cop, who owns and operates a disco and tries to shut down the local angel dust dealer after his nephew (played by Julius Carry) gets "whacked out" on the drug.
In 2005 he won an award for Best Live Performance and Best Underground Song of the Year for the song "Blaxploitation" from his debut album Paradise Lost at the third Annual Underground Music Awards.
In 1974, Morris co-starred as Bookie Garrett in the blaxploitation film The Black Six alongside other football stars of the day.
In 1976, Bass was among several Washington Redskins players who appeared in the blaxploitation film Brotherhood of Death.
Like "The Payback," "Papa Don't Take No Mess" was originally recorded for a rejected soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Hell Up in Harlem.
Significant roles for which Hooks is known include Reeve Scott in Hurry Sundown (1967), Mr. T. in the blaxploitation film Trouble Man (1972), grandpa Gene Donovan in the comedy Seventeen Again (2000), and Fleet Admiral Morrow in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984).
As a film actor, Tarkington played the title role in the 1974 blaxploitation picture Black Samson, co-starred with Richard X. Slattery in 1973's The No Mercy Man and 1976's Zebra Force, and had parts in many television films.
Shaft in Africa, released in 1973, is the third film in the blaxploitation trilogy of films that starred actor Richard Roundtree as John Shaft.
Burnett's novel The Asphalt Jungle was the basis of the western film The Badlanders (1958) directed by Delmer Daves, as well as the blaxploitation film Cool Breeze (1972), directed by Barry Pollack.
The American success of the blaxploitation genre led distributors to reedit this film and distribute it as G.I. Bro—in this version, scenes were cut to make Fred Williamson the lead character.
The first of these segments is called "Gandhi II" which re-imagines Mahatma Gandhi as the hero of a blaxploitation-style sequel to the film Gandhi, spoofing both the theme and promos for the film Shaft.