Beastie Boys Story (2020) – Review

Beastie Boys Story review

It is a huge challenge to remain relevant as a music artist. You only have to look at the number of one hit wonders (Big Shaq, PSY etc) who enjoyed very short and extreme success, but did not manage to turn that into a lasting career. Even big artists are only as good as their last album and have to keep trying to stay relevant. If you look at hip hop, the number of real stars is very small. Well-known groups and artists from the 80s and 90s have disappeared or have been mostly forgotten. One of the exceptions to this were the Beastie Boys. A group that started as a punk group in the 80s, made the switch to hip hop and evolved into proper musicians who made what they wanted, even if they were all instrumental songs. After Adam Yauch (MCA) died of cancer in 2012, the other members decided to stop making music. They previously released a book and now there is this documentary, directed by Spike Jonze. Continue reading

Bodied (2017) – Review

Review Bodied

I can still remember a moment, what could have been 20 years ago, when I went to a club in Rotterdam called Nighttown (which was once the place where a cinema was located) where a hiphop festival took place. It was a mix of all kinds of disciplines. In one room there were b-boys breakdancing, music was playing and artists were performing. But the thing everyone wanted to go to were the battles, which were on the program towards the end of the evening. A gladiatorial battle between different MCs, who try to basically kill each other verbally. A spectacle in which the direct feedback from the audience is the indicator of success. A mix of well thought-out pre-written texts, but also proof that you can respond to your environment and what the other person says to you. In one of the rounds it was local artist Tim Beumers battling and the referee dropped the coin by mistake at the toin coss, he saw an opportunity. He started and made an instant statement that the other guy was so poor that he saw him wanting to pick up that dropped coin. The audience went wild and Tim immediately used that in his lyrics as well. He went home as the winner that evening.

It is a subculture of hip hop that occasionally shows up in TV shows and films, with 8 Mile probably being the best known example. Eminem, who made a name for himself as a battle MC before he broke through, brought the battling to a wider audience and in Bodied, which he produced, also is about this scene. Is this a copy of that movie or does Bodied bring something new to the table? Continue reading

Rapture (2018) – Review

Review Rapture netflix
When it comes to hiphop, Netflix has a pretty solid offering of interesting documentaries (Bad Rap, Hip Hop Evolution, The Defiant Ones, Fresh Dressed, Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives, The Art of Organized Noize, Sample This) and movies/series (Roxanne Roxanne, The Get Down) about this music genre. I’ve watched all of them and although some of them are disappointing, in general they provide a lot of interesting information/entertainement. The latest addition is Rapture. According to the Netflix description hip-hop stars describe what defines them as artists and the effect they’ve had on culture beyond music. During (almost) each of the episodes the focus is on one artist. These are a mix of old and new artists: Logic, Nas & Dave East, G-Eazy, 2 Chainz, T.I., Rapsody, Just Blaze and A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. As I’ve been listening to hip hop less the last couple of years I didn’t know anything about Logic, Dave East, G-Eazy, Rapsody or A Boogie, so I was interested to learn more about them. Continue reading

Hip Hop Evolution: Season 1 – Review

Review Hip Hop Evolution

My favorite music genre has been hip hop for years. Since I started listening at the beginning of the nineties I’ve read a lot about it and seen various documentaries (with a lot of them of pretty bad quality). So I’m not afraid to admit that I know quite a bit about it. When this documentary series showed up on Netflix I was curious if it would have to offer something I didn’t know yet. Continue reading

The Get Down: Season 1 – Series review

ReviewThe Get Down season 1

When I first heard about The Get Down earlier this year I was really looking forward to it. The first images looked good and also the description of the show sounded interesting:

“The Get Down” is a mythic saga of how New York at the brink of bankruptcy gave birth to a new art form. Set in New York in 1977, this music-driven drama series chronicles the rise of hip-hop and the last days of disco -_ told through the lives, music, art and dance of the South Bronx kids who would change the world forever.

As a fan of hip hop this was a setting that immediately was something I wanted to know more about. Through the years I’ve learned a lot about the music, how it developed and seeing that in the form of a show on Netflix seemed awesome. The show has been written and produced by Baz Luhrmann, who has done things like Romeo+Juliet, Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby in the past. Someone who is very capable to show music in an exciting way which is visually pleasing. Besides that, New York in the seventies is a fascinating setting. Gangs were still very active (the documentary Rubble Kings is a good one to learn more about that). There was a lot of crime and buildings were set ablaze in order to collect insurance money. With a budget of 10 million per episode my expectations were high when I started watching this six part first season. Continue reading

Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap (2012)

review

Yesterday was the European premiere of this documentary directed by Ice-T. As I’ve been listening to rap close to 20 years I was excited to see this. Just looking at the trailer you will be amazed by the amount of well-known rappers that have participated in the making of this movie about their style of music. Ice-T interviews rappers who were there when it all just started, people like Afrika Bambaata, Doug E. Fresh and Melle Mel, but also artists whose star rose during the nineties (Cypress Hill, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Treach from Naughty By Nature etc) and early start of this century (Kanye West, Eminem).

The documentary which was shown simultaneously in various countries with a live Q&A session streamed to the cinema I was in afterwards (which was also attended by Chuck D, Raekwon and Melle Mel, who all performed) held at the Apollo in London. So as a big fan of hip hop, what did I think of The Art of Rap? Continue reading

HipHop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes (2006)

As a hip hop fan I’ve been listening to it for years and enjoy the music, but I always have this double feeling when listening to it. It’s not the kind of music you can play any time of the day, because of the extreme lyrics. Would you play it in front of your kids? I won’t because most of them are really unacceptable. They are usually not respectful to others, have a steady stream of curses, lots of violence and an image which I really don’t like. So it’s a bit of a love/hate relationship and generally I listen to it by myself. Byron Hurt had that same feeling and decided to dig deeper into the cause of this and ask why rappers feel like they have to show their superiority and masculinity. Continue reading

Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest (2011)

During the nineties A Tribe Called Quest was one of hip hop’s biggest groups who had various hits like “Can I Kick It”, “I left my wallet in El Segundo” and “Scenario (feat. Busta Rhymes”. The group fell apart in 1998 but did get back together from time to time to do a show. They didn’t make any more albums. Michael Rapaport, who’s a big fan of hip hop, decided to make a documentary about the group, interviewing all the band’s members and capturing one of their performances during the Rock the Bells tour (which they did to support Phife Dawg as he needed money to treat his diabetes). This documentary goes back into their history, tells why they were so succesful, but also the reasons behind their breakup. Continue reading

Say My Name (2009)

Hip hop is a world which is dominated by men. This is usually also the case for the audience. If you’d ask me to name 20 female MCs I would have a harder time to do so compare to male rappers. Say My Name looks at the women in hip hop and tries to find out how they experience this. A lot of well-known MCs are interviewed (Remy Ma, Rah Digga, Jean Grae, Erykah Badu, Estelle, MC Lyte, Roxxanne Shante and Monie Love) and some which are lesser known (Chocolate Thai, Invincible and Miz Korona) out of the US hip hop and UK grime scenes. Continue reading