these past few days saw the hip hop film festival come to the Rafael film center in San Rafael.
They opened with hip hop shorts, a collection of hip hop short movies about all kinds of topics. It was dope. But that's not what you want to hear about.
The next day had the main event: Director Kevin Epps' amazing documentary, called STRAIGHT OUTTA HUNTER'S POINT.
This powerful film gave all us suburban fools a glimpse into the obviously darker HP. Epps interviewed kids adults and rappers from both sides of the turf war, and put everything into perspective about the history of the area and the government's obligation and subsequent refusal to take action to clean up the old naval yard.
The best thing about going though, was Mr. Epps' willingness to exchange with us after we saw his movie. He took questions, comments, and gave us his two cents. He has a real presence. I asked him to sign my program, which he did. One of the people in Epps' crew was looking at me funny after that, so I leaned over and told him "He(Epps) is going places." The guy's face changed and got a very serious, kind of sad look, and he responded, "He has to."
In order to raise money for HP kids to have computers at the schools, he was selling DVDs of his documentary and CDs of his soundtrack for 20 and 10 dollars respectively. The man was so convincing that I emptied my wallet right there. I couldn't afford the DVD and I didn't want the cd, so we called it a donation. I think I saw a few other people do the same thing.
I also asked Epps about whether he thought rappers who talk about drugs, bitches, hos, and weed all the time are positive roll models, even if they are financially successful. I brought up Rappin 4 Tay as an example of someone who doesn't glorify a destructive lifestyle. He said 4Tay is his man, but he thinks that to a degree, all of the rappers are positive roll models.
This guy is going places, no doubt. See his film. Observing the activism of someone who is really out there, all the time, trying to make a difference is inspiring. It makes me feel like dead weight on the world :classic:
visit hiphopfilmfest.com.
After Epps' movie, they showed director Israel's documentary on the history and culture of breakdancing. It was pretty good, but from the 12 minutes or so that I've seen of Beto Lopez' documentary on the same subject, I'm thinking that you might want to wait for that.
Let me know what you guys think too.
They opened with hip hop shorts, a collection of hip hop short movies about all kinds of topics. It was dope. But that's not what you want to hear about.
The next day had the main event: Director Kevin Epps' amazing documentary, called STRAIGHT OUTTA HUNTER'S POINT.
This powerful film gave all us suburban fools a glimpse into the obviously darker HP. Epps interviewed kids adults and rappers from both sides of the turf war, and put everything into perspective about the history of the area and the government's obligation and subsequent refusal to take action to clean up the old naval yard.
The best thing about going though, was Mr. Epps' willingness to exchange with us after we saw his movie. He took questions, comments, and gave us his two cents. He has a real presence. I asked him to sign my program, which he did. One of the people in Epps' crew was looking at me funny after that, so I leaned over and told him "He(Epps) is going places." The guy's face changed and got a very serious, kind of sad look, and he responded, "He has to."
In order to raise money for HP kids to have computers at the schools, he was selling DVDs of his documentary and CDs of his soundtrack for 20 and 10 dollars respectively. The man was so convincing that I emptied my wallet right there. I couldn't afford the DVD and I didn't want the cd, so we called it a donation. I think I saw a few other people do the same thing.
I also asked Epps about whether he thought rappers who talk about drugs, bitches, hos, and weed all the time are positive roll models, even if they are financially successful. I brought up Rappin 4 Tay as an example of someone who doesn't glorify a destructive lifestyle. He said 4Tay is his man, but he thinks that to a degree, all of the rappers are positive roll models.
This guy is going places, no doubt. See his film. Observing the activism of someone who is really out there, all the time, trying to make a difference is inspiring. It makes me feel like dead weight on the world :classic:
visit hiphopfilmfest.com.
After Epps' movie, they showed director Israel's documentary on the history and culture of breakdancing. It was pretty good, but from the 12 minutes or so that I've seen of Beto Lopez' documentary on the same subject, I'm thinking that you might want to wait for that.
Let me know what you guys think too.
