RHYME & REASON

Unlike THE SHOW which featured extensive live footage of rap acts and interviews with Def Jam founder Russell Simmons, RHYME & REASON features interviews with a wide variety of artists involved in the hip-hop movement and contains little concert footage. The movie explores the story behind-the-scenes of many foul-mouthed, though talented musicians and rapping poets, including Ice-T, Heavy D, McEight, Salt N Pepa, The Fugees, De Brat, and Redman.

Examining the roots of hip-hop, the movie shows that it originated in the South Bronx. Hip-hop not only involved rap, but scratching, graffiti art and break dancing. Graffiti art and break dancing didnít last because they werenít viable, money making ventures. Rap music, however, became very lucrative, and soon, acts spread all over America, even to the West coast, where gangsta rap emerged. We learn about the purity of free style rapping (i.e. rapping and rhyming without memorized lyrics). We learn about the challenges of fame and financial success among hip-hop artists. We learn about the origins of lyrics, with an explanation that many songs about violence and drugs are not deliberately meant to propagate it, but merely to reflect the neighborhoods of the rappers, who only know the underbelly of society.

Emerging as an elder statesman on rap is controversial Ice-T. He is featured to a great degree talking from his opulent home. He tells critics about his rich lifestyle and that he thinks of himself as an example to the youth to let them know that they donít have to stay in the projects. He says that white people live wherever they want, so why canít he. Ice-T also defends the violent content in the lyrics, stating that nobody complains when Arnold Schwarzenegger kills police men in his action movies.

Also, Salt N Pepa talks about the challenges of being one of the first and most successful female hip-hop acts.

Insightful and well-documented, this probing look at hip-hop is marred by excessive obscenity. It also has a very grainy, and at times, distracting photography, making the viewer pay more attention to the film technique than the content. After nearly 20 years in existence, it is clear that rap music and hip-hop is not just a fad. It is a deliberate product of a culture trying to express itself. Some of its artists are extremely gifted, and are able to create lyrics and poetry instantaneously. Some artists even try to better society, like Heavy D, who holds cookouts for members of his community. Many artists, however, continue to speak of violence, sex and drug use. This may be familiar subject material, but until greater and more noble subject matter is promoted to the public, hip-hop and rap will continue to fight the stigma of being a lesser art form, morally and socially.