I am Everything: Little Richard was full of contradictions. But he wanted to be remembered as a child of God

Credited with being the original father of rock and roll, Little Richard careened between religion, sex, drugs and music. Derek Walker reviews I Am Everything, the documentary which charts his complicated life and sexuality

“A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop, a-lop-bam-boom!”

If you want to know where rock and roll started, it’s in those words.

This was the genre’s Big Bang. This – the inspiration for huge, history-making artists like The Beatles and the Rolling Stones – was Little Richard.

When he died in 2020, people started noticing how little credit his impact had been given. Director Lisa Cortés was one. In the trailer for I Am Everything, she says her work: “explodes the white-washed history of rock and roll and shines a light on the originator.”