'Who in the Hell is Regina Jones?': The Soul of Black Media Shines at PAFF
By Natalie McCarty
I just walked out of the theater mere minutes ago at the 33rd Annual Pan African Film + Arts Festival, and I am forever changed.
There are films that move you, films that inspire you, and then there are films that shake you to your very core. Who in the Hell is Regina Jones? is one of those rare, incomparable documentaries that transforms you. I walked out not just as a better writer or a more driven businesswoman, but as a more compassionate person, infused with an even deeper reverence for the legacy of media, Black storytelling, and the power of documenting history.
I have known of Regina Jones for years. She’s a woman I have long admired. Soul Magazine has made a dramatic impact on my love for media consumption. A Soul Magazine cover ever used to hang proudly in my room in New York City, long before I even had dreamed up writing my own magazine.
I have often turned to the pages of the groundbreaking publication that was–and is–Soul Magazine for inspiration, studying its marketing and editorial vision like a sacred text. And yet, even with all that reverence, this film showed me how much more there was to know about Regina Jones. The story behind the story. The woman, the visionary, the force of nature. And what a blessing it was.
Image Courtesy of Soul Newspaper
Regina Jones: The Woman Who Built an Empire
Regina Jones is not just a journalist, not just an entrepreneur, not just a publicist. She is a movement. She is a storyteller who refused to let Black music, Black culture, and Black voices be ignored. She is the co-founder of Soul Magazine, the first nationally distributed Black music publication in America, at a time when mainstream media overlooked Black artists or reduced them to footnotes. She made sure they were on the cover. She made sure their stories were told with depth, with nuance, with dignity.
Regina Jones is a magazine mogul, a publicist, a tastemaker, a strategist, a mother, a wife, a mentor, a changemaker, a visionary, and a relentless champion for Black artists. Her life’s work paved the way for the very industry that thrives today.
But before all of that, before she became the woman we now recognize as a titan of media, she was a 21-year-old trying to survive.
It was August 1965. Regina and her husband, Ken, were broke, raising five small children, and trying to find their way. Ken, a dreamer with aspirations of being Los Angeles’ first Black news anchor, worked odd jobs. Regina worked the second shift as an LAPD dispatcher.
Then, on the night of August 11, Regina took a call that changed everything.
“I can still feel it in my chest,” she says in the film. It was the first distress call of what would become the Watts Rebellion—a six-day uprising by a long disenfranchised and brutalized community. It was a defining moment in American history, and neither Regina nor her family would ever be the same again.
Amid the chaos, she saw something else: opportunity.
She told Ken, “Go out there and be the reporter you want to be.” And for six days, he did just that. His reporting was heard on the radio, his voice carrying over the fires and shattered glass of a city in turmoil. And in the midst of it all, as he waded through the wreckage, Ken began to ask himself, What can I do for my people?
The answer came less than a year later.
Image Courtesy of Soul Newspaper
In 1966, Ken and Regina launched Soul Newspaper from their dining room table. It was a revolutionary act—a publication made for the Black community, by the Black community. It predated Rolling Stone and Creem, and by the 1970s, it was the go-to outlet for Black artists. If you were Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, or Stevie Wonder, you weren’t waiting for mainstream publications to pay attention—you were in Soul.
But success, as always, came at a cost.
Image Courtesy of Soul Newspaper
By the early 1980s, Soul was shuttered. Her marriage to Ken was over. The empire they built together had crumbled.
And yet, Regina did what she always did. She picked up the pieces. She pivoted. She started again.
A Documentary That Feels Like a Revolution
Directed with meticulous care and deep admiration Soraya Sélène and Billy Miossi’s Who in the Hell is Regina Jones? is a reckoning. It is Regina telling her own story, in her own words. It is not a neat, polished highlight reel, but an unfiltered and deeply human exploration of a woman who navigated the complexities of power, race, gender, and success in an industry that often sought to erase or diminish her contributions.
Beyond simply showcase Regina’s impressive career milestones, it presents her as a fully realized person—one who has experienced triumph, heartbreak, reinvention, and the push and pull of legacy. It shows her humanity, her strength, her resilence. It’s fierce. It’s inpsiring.
Image Courtesy of Soul Newspaper
Through archival footage, interviews, and raw, intimate storytelling, we see the many iterations of Regina: the young woman with an unshakable dream, the fearless entrepreneur taking risks in a volatile industry, the mother balancing ambition and family, and her now, reflecting on her impact.
Yes, it is a portrait of one woman’s life, but it is also a tapestry of her family’s stories. Honoring not only her legacy but theirs too.
Who in the Hell is Regina Jones? forces us to look at ourselves: What are we doing to document our own moments? What voices are we elevating? What stories are we preserving for the next generation?
Image Courtesy of Soul Newspaper
The Power of Telling Our Own Stories
Regina Jones didn’t wait for mainstream publications to recognize the genius of Black artists—she created the space herself. She didn’t ask for permission to be heard—she built her own microphone. This documentary is not just about her past; it is a call to action for the present.
It is a reminder that media is not just about entertainment: it is about archiving history.
This film does more than justice to her legacy. It paints an intricate, deeply felt, and breathtaking portrait of a woman who, against all odds, shaped the very culture we consume today. It is raw, emotional, painful, beautiful. It is a testament to a life well-lived and a legacy that will never fade.
Regina Jones is not just a name in history. She is history.
And after watching this film, you will never forget her name again.
Image Courtesy of Soul Newspaper
