Viola Davis & Chadwick Boseman Sing the Blues in 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' Trailer

The upcoming Netflix movie features Chadwick Boseman's final film performance.

About [checks watch] a bajillion years into quarantine with no end in sight, you could say we've all been feeling something of the blues. Feeling the blues is a universal pastime, but singing them is another matter entirely. Only a few singers in the world made it big performing blues music in the early 20th century, and Netflix's much-anticipated movie Ma Rainey's Black Bottom will tell the story of the "Mother of the Blues" herself. 

Told from the perspective of a single, high-tension recording session, Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) and her backing band, including ambitious jazz horn player Levee (Chadwick Boseman), struggle to record their songs while fighting against a white studio's attempts to control their art. The film is based on a play by August Wilson, who also wrote the Oscar-nominated Fences. This will also sadly be Boseman's final film, which he completed production on shortly before his shocking death from colon cancer earlier this year. 

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom will play in select theaters in November and will hit Netflix on December 18.

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Emma Stefansky is a staff entertainment writer at Thrillist. Follow her on Twitter @stefabsky.