A Jazzman’s Blues has been 17 years in the making for Tyler Perry and now that it’s here, the writer, director and producer is ready for the world to witness what he has dubbed his passion project.

“I was a little sad last week because I realized it’s done,” said Perry said in a recent chat that he and the cast of the Netflix did with Shadow and Act. “You know, I’d held on to it for so long. It’s like, I know what a parent feels like when that kid goes off to college now and the nest is empty. I’ve held it and protected it for the right time until this moment so I’m excited for people to see it, but also a little sad because I held on to it for so long.”

The film, according to its description, is “a tale of forbidden love and family drama [that] unravels 40 years of secrets and lies against a soundtrack of juke-joint blues in the Deep South.” Perry said the current climate of the nation is what led him to release the project at this moment.

“Just watching what’s happening in America where there are certain political figures who want to reimagine the history of Black people in America that want to ban certain books, that don’t want people to know how bad slavery was, or the atrocities, or how much we built America on our backs,” the Madea creator explained.

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