#fearofablackhat

The early-mid 1990′s were a strange time in hip-hop, sort of a symbolic crossroads for the culture at large.  Boom-bap hip-hop and enlightening hip-hop still charted, but the shift towards gangster rap was gaining unstoppable momentum.  Hip-hop was already well established in the soundtrack world, but it was beginning to take center stage and become the focus of films.  While CB4 (which I will no doubt cover at some point) made more noise with it’s star power and Hollywood budget, a little film with big heart silently became the This is Spinal Tap! of hip-hop films... that film was Fear of a Black Hat.

Documentary filmmaker Nina Blackburn (Kasi Lemmons) embeds herself with rap group N.W.H. in order to understand more about the group, the rap business, hip-hop culture, and what goes into their creative process.  Through a series of candid interviews and ‘fly on the wall’ experiences of their day to day lives, Blackburn becomes an expert at the group as a whole and its individual members : frontman of the group and mouthpiece Ice Cold (Rusty Cundieff); secondary MC and loose cannon Tasty Taste (Larry B. Scott); and DJ Tone Def (Mark Christopher Lawrence).  Through her journeys and exploits with N.W.H., Blackburn plays witness to several managers dying due to ‘gun-related accidents’, the group’s bitter rivalry with fellow chart toppers the Jam Boys (Faizon Love, Moon Jones and Deezer D), their issues with security guards, and their ever controversial music.

Rusty Cundieff works on two levels of homage for this film that coexist beautifully : on the one hand, the film is an homage to the hip-hop culture and the space it existed in prior to becoming integrated into the mainstream culture... on the other hand, the film is an homage to low budget film-making, specifically what Rob Reiner did with This is Spinal Tap! for rock and roll music via the mockumentary film style.  By combining these two levels of homage, you are given a culture full of material to reference in a wide variety of humorous and insightful ways, and a format that allows actors the ability to live in the characters and the moments, which will always result in richer performances and humor that plays truer to life.

The group N.W.H. manages to represent both East and West coast aspects of hip-hop culture, a feat that some wish could have been reflective of the times.  The group in the film is musically a tribute to Public Enemy in both sound and group makeup/dynamic, while their off record/stage persona more closely mirrors that of N.W.A. and other gangster rap groups.  Unfortunately, a real life cultural divide shortly after the release of this film due to tensions between record labels from these opposing coasts would put definitive separation between the coasts, with lives being lost in the process.  The film also shows a handful of groups mirroring real hip-hop acts that would also unfortunately find themselves phased out of the popular scene in real life due to hip-hop trending towards embracing gangster rap over all else.

While I personally enjoy the obvious homage this film shows for This Is Spinal Tap! (including several narrative story beats shaped into the hip-hop context), many people are unable to see past those similarities, or the similarities to the comparable (but completely different in tone and presentation) CB4.  For what it’s worth, the song parodies in Fear of a Black Hat really makes this film stand out to me, with pitch perfect 'Weird’ Al Yankovic-esque renditions of popular hip-hop songs from the past and (then) present.  These songs not only help provide passage of time for the group’s existence, they are also the foundations for several jokes that are pulled off during the film.

Rusty Cundieff does a solid job of channeling Chuck D while maintaining the silly edge of Nigel Tufnel.  Larry B. Scott steals most every scene he is in with a personality that far overshadows his slight stature.  Mark Christopher Lawrence drops plenty of abstract gems while encompassing the ‘hippie’ hip-hop aesthetic that was seeing its last moments at the time of the film’s release.  Kasi Lemmons plays the straight-man well, helping to keep the proceedings moving along while softballing in perfect setups for the group to knock out of the park.  Faizon Love, Moon Jones and Deezer D are wonderfully ridiculous in their portrayal of the Jam Boys.  This film is littered with faces you’ll recognize from 1990′s and 2000′s comedy, and everyone milks their moments to the extreme, making this low budget gem into a film that will hold viewer attention and deliver plenty of laughs.