the film." The film's music was performed by the then-unknown group Earth, Wind & Fire, who were living in a single apartment with hardly any food at the time. Van Peebles' secretary was dating one of the bandmembers, and convinced him to contact them about performing the music for the film. Van Peebles projected scenes from the film as the band performed the music. By alternating hymn-based vocalization and jazz rhythms, Van Peebles created a sound that foreshadowed the use of sampling in hip hop music. Van Peebles recalls that "music was not used as a selling tool in movies at the time. Even musicals, it would take three months after the release of the movie before they would bring out an album." Because Van Peebles did not have any money for traditional advertising methods, he decided that by releasing a soundtrack album in anticipation of the film's release, he could help build awareness for the film with its music. Release and alterations The film was released on March 31, 1971, at the Grand Circus Theatre in Detroit and on April 2, 1971, at the Coronet Theatre in Atlanta. Melvin Van Peebles stated that "at first, only two theaters in the United States would show the picture: one in Detroit, and one in Atlanta. The first night in Detroit, it broke all the theater's records, and that was only on the strength of the title alone, since nobody had seen it yet. By the second day, people would take their lunch and sit through it three times. I knew that I was finally talking to my audience. Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song made thousands of dollars in its first day." It grossed $70,000 in its first week in Detroit. The film went on to gross over $15 million at the box office (about $90 million in 2016 dollars). After Sweetback received an X rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, inspiring the advertising tagline "Rated X by an all-white jury", and the Music Hall theater in Boston cut nine minutes out of the film, Van Peebles stated, "Should the rest of the community submit to your censorship that is its business, but White standards shall no longer be imposed on the Black community." The Region 2 DVD release from BFI Video has the opening sex sequences altered. A notice at the beginning of the DVD states "In order to comply