A man in Harlem must traverse perilous waters as he attempts to dually support his brother's career in jazz and help him cope with the pain that led him to a heroin overdose in the past.

When a melancholic blues singer gets his big break, he discovers that his success as a musician is mutually exclusive with his happiness as a human being.

An African American man in his early-20s becomes renowned for his blues performances on the streets around the United States, playing for jail inmates, young couples, and passerbys alike.

The standing of a Kansas City burlesque show with twisted secrets is threatened by the local political climate as police officers target the provocative business.

In an apocalyptic world, a dancer is performing a long-lost routine at her old, now-abandoned theater when her former dance partner unexpectedly appears, infected by a dangerous disease.

A woman with a seemingly unexceptional life takes up glass bottle dancing after the death of a friend, practicing at night so her family doesn't see her. When she is eventually found out, she decides to put on a public performance that's attended by some unusual neighbors.

A Black singer moves her community through the power of song throughout the tumultuous 20th century as she sings everything from blues to gospel music.

In a segregated America at the onset of World War II, strange, explosive “stumps”—formed out of spores and resembling wooden statues of the recently deceased—have begun to appear all over cities. To neutralize and remove these stumps, a new government agency has employed a group of singers whose unique vocal resonance can turn the stumps to dust. But when the only two Black female “exterminators” in Chicago—a God-fearing goody two-shoes and a brash blues singer—uncover the agency's corrupt secrets, they decide to stage a rebellion.

An elderly woman visits her successful grandson in New York City. Although various people allude to the scandalousness of the source of his fortune, she is unsure if she wants the truth.

During Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, a former heroin addict saxophonist, and his longtime friend observe the destruction of their city while they wait for the drummer’s gangster brother to rescue them.