The Art of Rap: Something from Nothing

Ice-T does a documentary about rap. I wouldn't say that it's particularly focus. Mostly it's Ice-T chatting up other rappers about old times. It's not as enlightening as much as fascinating. There's some great stories. There's also some boring parts. If he could try to frame this as rap history, he could give this better structure. Although it does feel more free flowing like the rappers giving their own raps to this film. This is really just Ice-T traveling around, sitting and chatting with other rappers. Many people does a rap. They're not framing this as a definitive history of rap. Just people telling old stories.

I've watched quite a few hip-hopumentaries now and each one is a little bit different. "Rhyme & Reason" came out in the late 90's featuring the best artists during the golden age of hip-hop. "Hip-Hop Evolution" is a more recent Netflix mini-series that is very educational. "Beats, Rhymes, & Life" focuses solely on A Tribe Called Quest. Ice-T's "Something from Nothing" is a bit of "The Show" and "Rhyme & Reason" with a focus on rapping. Ice-T goes from the East Coast to the West Coast with a stop in Detroit to interview some of the legends of hip-hop.

The Art of Rap is a documentary of the evolution of Hip Hop and the artists who were instrumental in creating an urban musical revolution. This film did exactly what a documentary should do, it provided a record of the pioneers of this art form through an up close and what felt like a personal conversation with these artists. Ice-T traverses the Big Apple as he talks candidly with East Coast artists like Rakim, Chuck D, Q-Tip and my personal favorite Doug E Fresh, who by the way is still phenomenal with the art form of Beat Box. Yes, I heard it here from the man himself that he is the originator of Beat Box, which he defines as an accompaniment to the Master of Ceremony. This film was educational in that I learned if you are not an MC you are just a rapper. Rappers come and go, MCs endure because they are lyricists. Apparently, Mos Def is no longer Mos Def, which sounds so much cooler than Yasiin. When Xzibit was being interviewed I had to recover my thoughts of him being an MC, I couldn't shake Pimp My Ride, but that just made me think of how far he and others like Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg and Ice T have come in the entertainment industry. I found it to be profound when Ice T spoke to Eminem after Red Man had given him his props to say that one of the greatest of all times is a white cat. It is true Eminem is one of the best. I was a bit disappointed in the fact that only one female MC was featured in the East, Salt and only one in the West, MC Lyte. I thought that Eve could have been counted, but maybe she's considered part of the new school. Salt and MC Lyte were both poised and articulate, did a bit of a freestyle as did the Guys but did not delve into the standard language of the Hip Hop culture that being the colloquialisms and the profanity. The film is not yet rated, but every conversation included: fork, beach, sheet, 4Q and knicker (figure it out). When it does get a rating it will be at minimum an 'R', just for the language alone. This film is not for the prudish or young children, but anyone who grew up listening to these artists will love the on screen journey. It's not for everybody but I liked it and am giving it a green light.

Hip-Hop heavyweight Tracy Marrow, better known as Ice-T, travels from the East to the West coast to interview dozens of rap's finest to provide a 360° perspective on the art of rap, and establish why this subversive underground movement has quickly become the most lucrative musical genre in the world.

Many can rhyme words; few can do it with panache. To prove this, we're treated to several tantalising tongue-twisters from the likes of Eminem, Kanye West, Nas and Mos Def (now known as Yasiin), although some legendary MCs let themselves down by delivering feckless freestyles.

Rappers being rappers, they all claim credit for being the first to do this or that. No one really bothers to answer the question at the heart of this documentary. I wanted the history and truth about rap. Afrika Bambaataa and KRS-One – two from the Old School – deliver knowledgeable insights (slave-era camaraderie prefigured battle rapping, the turntable was turned into an instrument), but after a while the contributions become monotonous, irrelevant, uninteresting and surprisingly, given that these are purported wordsmiths, inarticulate. Ice-T becomes more interested in kicking back with his homies while they smoke unfeasibly big joints and rap along to classic hip-hop tracks.

Ice-T promises follow-ups to his directorial debut, for which I have a piece of advice: When cats like these end their sentences with 'Nah mean', i.e. 'Do you know what I mean?', for our sake, please find out what they mean.

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I was quite looking forward to this film, having been away when it made its very brief appearance into UK cinemas. The film presents itself as a documentary on rap music in light of how massive it has become as a genre and, as a fan of some aspects of hip-hop, it was something that interested me. In reality it isn't actually a documentary so much as it is a very loose celebration of the genre and those involved in it from the start. Ice-T presents, directs and various other roles and the whole film is him chatting with fellow artists about their first introduction to the music, their thoughts on it, favourite lines and so on. There appears to be no real structure other than what has been put in afterwards and as a result the value of the film is limited.

If you are looking to learn about hip-hop as a genre of music and how it grew and developed then this is not the film to come to. Conversely, if you are already a fan of the music and know your history then this film will offer the same to you as it appears to have offered to Ice-T – a chance to shoot the breeze with lots of artists all talking with passion about the music they love. This is where the film works best and it is not a good thing that it does so. Even fans of the music will struggle with some of the ways time is spent here because it feels padded at times and also some of the artists don't really have a great deal to say. The interviews are quite weak in terms of their direction and I did get the feeling that they had not been particularly well prepared for and that the film was relying on the subjects to just be good. Luckily some of them really are but of course this trust also means that at times the contributions aren't worth a great deal other than the name of the person involved.

As much as I love him, Q-Tip was one such example; it was great to have so many names involved but it would have been better to have had fewer and make more use of them. The credit for the many, many artists involved rests with Ice-T but unfortunately as presenter he is unable to draw the best from his subjects. Indeed he often seems too fond of himself and there are multiple slow-motion walking shots of him along with far too many obvious helicopter cityscapes. He is not bad per se, but at times he gets in the way of his own film and some of this selection of material seems to speak to his ego rather than the content of the film.

There is plenty here for older fans of the genre though, but this is different from it being a good film, because it really isn't that good. As a documentary it offers little and it really does need the viewer to already be in the right place to watch it. As a fan of the music and the culture, I liked it, but I would be lying if I said it were a good film in and of itself.