- Richard Herring
Ah, rap music; ignorant, ignorant rap music. How I love ye. If only
someone could make a documentary about it. Well, someone has: the kill the
police rapper Ice-T in fact. Of course, many documentaries have been made about
hip hop, largely focusing on more commercial names, many telling a similar dull
story and aren’t particularly that well made.
So, what does director Ice-T have for us? Well, ‘The Art of Rap’ is
less a documentary and more a collection of interviews with some of the more
famous and influential names to bless the mic, as well as all proving their
place in the film by showing their skills minus any beats.
Ice-T’s interviewing is essentially to ask three questions: why doesn’t
hip hop get the same respect as jazz and rhythm n blues?; what is your
contribution to hip hop?; and what advice would you give to any new rappers?
This essentially comes back with the answers: hip hop has a lot more attitude;
and hip hop is something different to everybody – things pretty much anyone
could have told you.
But this isn’t a documentary designed to tell a story or come up with
any great answers; it’s a showcase for the purists of some of the best emcees
busting rhymes. Unlike ‘Scratch’ which tells a story of the origins of DJing, little
is mentioned about the development of rapping beyond the chronological order in
which emcees are introduced, starting in the various boroughs of New York before
moving across to LA. More focus is rightly given to East Coast emcees,
particularly the likes of Grandmaster Caz getting as much screen time as bigger
names such as Eminem and Kanye ‘why am I here, really?’ West.
‘The Art of Rap’ is not designed to educate, simply entertain and show
some top-notch freestyling while sat in a cinema, which is a good thing. Ice-T
is the best person to act as host for all this, having the charisma of a Hollywood
star with the added bonus of being the O.G. rapper. It’s interesting to hear
the individual motivations, though there is little to really shatter the Earth
beyond the closing thoughtful message from Snoop ‘always be Doggy to me’ Dogg,
of all people.
Here’s a man talking…
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