What is it with rappers and acting? The tangible line of success between hip-hop and Hollywood has strengthened through the nineties and into the noughties, with countless examples of successful money-grabbing rappers trying to convert their lyrical talent into acting steel. What is it that prompts this change in field? The money? The ego? Probably both. The on stage persona that is seen as part and parcel in the hip hop industry appears to feed the musicians’ egos to the extent whereby they believe that they have the ability to cut the mustard in front of a camera.
This week I thought I’d use the Charlie Sloth mixtape for Top Boy, as a way to crowbar in a mention of the new Channel 4 drama. Staring Ashley Walters and Kane Robinson (better known as Kano), the promotional blurb unfortunately uses the words ‘raw’ and ‘gritty’ hackneyed PR terms that do a disservice to anything that actually has depth. And watching the extended traileryou get the impression that Top Boy might just be a heavy slice of original British drama. Written by Ronan Bennet, Face and Public Enemies, who plunged himself deep into gang culture to research the work, and with cinematography that recalls the work of German photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg – think the beautiful but bleak album cover for The Streets debut LP – and Top Boy looks like it will be an illuminating, charged and sobering affair.
A line said with such tongue-in-cheek sincerity that you cannot help but smile. It’s the perfect quote to outline the aesthetic of Dark Days, a documentary by British film-maker Marc Singer that profiles the lives of New Yorkers who have resorted to living in an abandoned segment of the subway system known as The Freedom Tunnel. What is particularly surprising and enjoyable at the beginning is the light-hearted nature of some of the documentary’s characters. Far from being depressed misanthropes, we are introduced to a variety of people who are recounting past events whilst shaving, going about daily business or painting the walls of their living quarters.
In what will now become a weekly feature on Bonafide, I will take time out to look back on all things hip-hop in the world of film. From failed rappers-cum-actors, to killer soundtracks and eye opening documentaries, I will also be casting an eye on forgotten classics that have been lost in the bargain buckets of your local petrol station, reconsidering movies that were originally panned on release, and inform you all of recent releases and whether they are worth your time or not.
Floating around three central characters; video addict/artist Thierry Guetta, an LA-based Frenchman who moves from being behind a shop counter to being (permanently) behind a camera before becoming Mr Brainwash (MBW); Banksy and Shepard Fairey. The film begins describing how Guetta picks up a camera and ends up documenting the street-art scene and how that leads to him building a rapport with Bansky and finally the launch of his artistic career (sic.) as MBW.
Kind of like Hustle but stripped back with a Who’s Been Framed DIY quality, the magic of this film is that those who have made it are experts in the dark arts of deception and myth making. …Read More.
Style Wars: Revisited Tony Silver & Henry Chalfont
MVD Visual
As Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfont’s Subway Art is to print, so Tony Silver and Henry Chalfont’s epic Style Wars is to video, in documenting what would ultimately become one of the biggest cultural movements of the late 20thcentury, evolving ever onwards into the 21stwith no sign of abating. …Read More.
Le Donk & Scor-Zay-Zee
