Melvin was widely regarded as the “godfather of Black cinema,” and his most iconic film was likely Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, a film credited with kicking off the blaxploitation movement that also spawned films like Shaft and Superfly. Sweet Sweetback’s grossed an estimated $15 million on a budget of just $500,000 and Melvin wrote, directed, and starred in the picture and composed the music for the film.
The film showed life in the ghetto from a Black perspective and offered an empowerment message to its viewers. “All the films about Black people up to now have been told through the eyes of the Anglo-Saxon majority in their rhythms and speech and pace,” Melvin told Newsweek in 1971.
Melvin, who was the director of the film, produced many Broadway shows and became involved with options trading on Wall Street.