Featured pop concert: Melvin Van Peebles wid Laxative

As he speaks from his home in Manhattan, Melvin Van Peebles, 81, director of stage and screen, writer, sculptor, one of rap's earliest adopters, happily jumps from story to story, from his time behind the camera to his coming gig at Johnny Brenda's on Saturday, fronting a band named wid Laxative.

Van Peebles speaks of whiskey and his good times in Paris ("I know just enough French to get me slapped," he sing-speaks with a giggle), chats about Occupy Wall Street and the music of protest, and digs deep into his catalog to make points without actually stating his intentions first. On the subject of creativity, he says that one moment, he gets an idea, and says to himself, "This would make a great sculpture, the next 'Wow, that'd be an amazing song,' then I think about what sort of scene that would be. It's about what's applicable to any given realm. Between you and me, I'm just minding my own business when something hits."

Throughout this conversation, Van Peebles focuses on his work as independent writer/director/actor, as in the self-financed 1971 film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which made him millions. He also talks of his career as a musician, whose mix of free verse and noisy jazz-funk electrified albums such as 1969's Brer Soul, 1974's What the. . .. You Mean I Can't Sing?!, and 2012's Nahh. . . Nahh Mofo.

"Know who I think I'm like?" Van Peebles says. "Pete Seeger, man. He kept on going, doing his thing. It's not about how many times you get knocked down, it's about how many times you get up." When Sweetback opened, he says, only two theaters in America would play it at first. "Independent films weren't real films to some of these cats, not like today. They weren't ready for that. Same thing with music. Meanwhile, back at the ranch. I had to do it myself, but I would have loved to have had a partner."

But whether in film studios or dealing with record labels, Van Peebles wasn't having anyone telling him what to do. "Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh, you put your finger on it," he yells. "Just because you have the money, doesn't give you the power to tell me what the arc of a story is or what something should sound like."

The power of Sweetback and its sound track (composed by Van Peebles, performed by Earth, Wind & Fire) attracted the New York avant group Burnt Sugar, a large, noise-driven rock orchestra. "They wanted to do something without me," he says, "and I said 'No, no, homie, don't play that. You could be my band.' " Members of Burnt Sugar have joined Van Peebles under the name wid Laxative to make free, funky music, like that heard in Nahh.

What material will he do? He avoids committing himself, claiming "an age problem," as in "I like the songs we did together, and know bits and pieces of 'em, but mostly we'll be making stuff up. So just enjoy yourself. Don't get on your own damned last nerves. That's my motto."