Using the name Jimmie Baskette, he appeared with Louis Armstrong on Broadway in the 1929 black musical revue Hot Chocolates and in several all-black New York films, including Harlem is Heaven (1932).

In 1941 he voiced Fats Crow in the animated Disney film Dumbo, and he also had bit parts in several B movies, including that of Lazarus in Revenge of the Zombies (1943), a porter in The Heavenly Body (1944), and native tribal leader Orbon in Jungle Queen (1945).

In 1945, he auditioned for a bit part voicing one of the animals in the new Disney feature film Song of the South (1946), based on the Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris.

[8][9] Baskett defended the film and his character in it, saying, "I believe that certain groups are doing my race more harm in seeking to create dissension, than can ever possibly come out of the Song of the South.

[11] Baskett had been in poor health during the filming of Song of the South due to diabetes and he suffered a heart attack in December 1946 shortly after its release.