Joseph Bologne Could Have Been As Big As Beethoven — In Chevalier, He Finally Gets His Due

In 2020, an old theory resurfaced on the internet hypothesizing that world famous composer Ludwig van Beethoven may have actually been Black, sparking controversy as well as a long overdue conversation about the well-documented whiteness of the classical music landscape. The claims about Beethoven’s race have been heavily debated by classical music scholars for centuries, but ultimately, we don’t need to spend our time trying to figure out if the German virtuoso would have been invited to the cookout. Other Black composers existed — their contributions to the genre and to culture as a whole were just disregarded and hidden in the shadows. Until now.  

Chevalier, a biopic that hit theaters today (April 21), follows the lost story of Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges (played by Kelvin Harrison, Jr.), a French composer and musician who rose to prominence in the 18th century during the reign of Marie Antoinette. Born in the then-colony of Guadeloupe to a white plantation owner and an enslaved Senegalese woman, Bologne was raised and professionally trained in France, flourishing in music and fencing to the point that his excellence earned him the covetous throne-appointed title of Chevalier de Saint-Georges (a position equivalent to that of a knight). Although Bologne lives and works among the elites as a chevalier, he begins to realize that in France, he will always be seen as inferior because of the color of his skin. He may not be surrounded by other Black people, but in the eyes of the world, Bologne will always be more Black — more other — than he is French. 

As he becomes cognizant of his true place in French society as a Black man, we see him struggle to reconcile his Blackness with his Frenchness and his high status in society. Here, the concept of “double consciousness” comes into play. Scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois coined the term specifically to describe the double but often contrary minds that Black Americans have to possess while facing anti-Blackness in white space, but it’s applicable to every Black person, certainly for Bologne. He was taught to be excellent in order to make up for the fact that he was Black, but when a painful rejection from the highest musical prestige in the land solely on the basis of his race firmly illuminates his reality, Bologne quickly comes to understand that within a white supremacist framework, being ten times better will just never be enough. In his crisis, the sudden reappearance of Bologne’s mother Nanon (Ronke Adekoluejo) provides him with the stability and connection to his roots that he’s always needed but was denied. Patiently but with a firm hand, Nanon reminds her son that he is Black first and foremost, and her unshakeable security in her identity as a Black woman helps Bologne find confidence in his own as a Black man. 

The more comfortable he becomes with his roots, the more discontent and disgusted he becomes with France’s racist and classist hierarchy. After ignoring the class war raging outside of his swanky villa’s window, Bologne finally decides to join the efforts of the proletariat against the iron fist of the crown and her bourgeoisie. The film shows Bologne leveraging his talent and network as a composer to create the soundtrack for the revolution, but in real life, he actually stopped making music to fight as a colonel in a volunteer brigade composed of soldiers of color until his death in 1799. 

“I learned about Joseph Bologne when I was 16 years old, and the thing that really stood out to me was that he was just a rockstar,” says Chevalier writer Stefani Robinson in a Zoom interview with Unbothered. “Joseph was at the forefront of a cultural movement, like a Prince or a Jimi Hendrix. When you’re a kid, history feels so far away, but that rockstar quality of his made him seem so much more than just a guy in a book. This person was special. He was singular. And that fascinated me.”

Robinson didn’t have a lot to work with while penning Chevalier years ago besides Gabriel Banat’s 1840 book, The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow. Bologne’s life wasn’t well-documented in history, and that erasure was intentional. Following the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte’s hostile takeover of the country was marked by violent nationalist and racist international policy, and as a result of government-mandated anti-Blackness, much of Bologne’s work was intentionally buried. But as she began to look deeper into what she could find about the life of the chevalier, Robinson felt a personal obligation to bring Bologne’s story to the silver screen. If he was that important to the culture, it was only right that he take center stage once more. 

Though building upon the bare bones subject material of the film was a daunting task, Chevalier’s talented cast easily fills in the gaps of Bologne’s life, painting a convincing picture of what trying to navigate 18th century France might have been like for him. The ever-talented Kelvin Harrison, Jr. (Waves, Cyrano) is a perfect fit as the chevalier, balancing Bologne’s abundance of pride and swagger  — some of the few aspects of the composer’s life that were well-documented in history — with the deep wound he’s nursing as a Black man fighting for his place and his acknowledgment in a white world. That constant mental toil of double consciousness is something that Harrison Jr. can deeply relate to — after all, he’s a Black actor working in Hollywood. The pressure of trying to be “more” than a Black actor is always there. 

“I came into Hollywood at the right moment,” Harrison Jr. explains over Zoom, pointing out how the industry had just started to tell nuanced Black stories when he first made his acting debut in 2013. “At the same time, there have been so many roles that I’ve had to come in and help reimagine it from my perspective. I feel like I’ve often been asked to exist in a space that isn’t necessarily mine. It becomes a non-negotiable — if I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t work. There’s some choice in it, of course, and I’ve tried to keep my individuality and hold on to a sense of my culture and where I come from. But it’s definitely been a struggle at times.”

“I want to expand how we can be seen [in Hollywood], and that’s part of the negotiation as well,” he continues. “How do we expand our understanding of who we are?” 

His co-star Ronke Adekoluejo took a similarly introspective approach to her storytelling process as well, using the lack of information about Nanon to get creative in building the character from the ground up. Joseph was able to evolve because his mother paved the path for him and as a key player in her son’s radicalization, Nanon is central to this plot. (Art imitates life — aren’t Black women always the catalyst behind change?) Ronke Adekoluejo found inspiration for the role in the journeys of other Black women in history who weren’t afraid to antagonize the system. 

“I needed to understand what gave Nanon resolve, what made her so resilient, so I started to research,” says Adekoluejo. “Yaa Asantewa, Harriet Tubman, Stagecoach Mary — all of these women valiantly fought back against oppression because they wanted to create a different narrative for themselves, and I felt like it was important for Nanon to have that same righteous indignation of by any means necessary, to not fear violence as an instigator of change.”

Chevalier may be a biopic about a man who walked this earth over 200 years ago, but his story is timely because it speaks to the unfortunate phenomenon of Black erasure. Throughout history, Black people’s work and contributions to society have been downplayed, overlooked, and even appropriated because of racism. We see it in Napolean’s intentional concealment of Bologne’s work, but we can also see it today — in Black TikTok creators not being fairly compensated for the success of their content, in Beyoncé repeatedly losing Album of the Year at the Grammys, in luxury fashion brands stealing aesthetics from traditional Africans design, in conservative lawmakers fighting to rewrite history to minimize the dire circumstances that led to the necessary work of Black activists. Unfortunately, Black people from every corner of the diaspora have demonstrably not been given their due in the mainstream. 

“We’re seeing it in real time, these efforts to erase our history — any sort of marginalized community’s history — in schools,” Robinson shakes her head. “It’s so insidious, but I feel like the only way to stand up against that is to keep doing what I’m doing: making the conscious effort to amplify what people are trying to hide.”

Harrison Jr. wants us to take cues from Bologne’s trajectory; he only found true peace and security in himself once he turned his gaze away from the people who othered him and towards his own community. “Joseph made art for those who wanted to recognize it, for those who wanted to appreciate it — for people who saw him,” says the Chevalier star. “That preservation only really happens in community. It’s important to branch out, but you have to sing to the choir that wants to listen. If you feed it to the wolves, the wolves are going to eat it, but not in the way you want them to.”

Chevalier is proof that we can’t be blotted out of the timeline. No matter how much they try to bury them, our stories will be told. 

Chevalier is now playing in theaters.