This picture is a little over a year old, but I just found it last night and find it hilarious. I think Luda's shirt speaks for itself, but when paired with Young Baracka Obama Taking Office, I can't help but be tickled. This also seems like a giant slap in the face to Oprah, who loves BHO but ridiculed Luva Luva on her show after "Crash" came out. I think it's pretty obvious from his expression that Ludacris is thinking the exact same thing.
I've been sick this week (103.3 degrees, to be exact), so I haven't been in the mood to write anything, so hopefully this will spark me to get some work done. After reading a lot of reviews about the "Juno" soundtrack, which range from favorable to not so kind, I started to realize that in the small world of independent film, there are very few movies that feature hip hop (or really anything that is not "indie rock") as the bulk of the soundtrack. This isn't so surprising, since a lot of rap acts aren't held in universal esteem throughout our generation and the music is still relatively young compared to other genres. There's also the problem that a lot of rappers today use the first-person in their lyrics, as well as mention their names, so it's a bit hard to set some sort of mood when you hear "First Family!!!" in the background. But, I guess "Entourage" has been able to accomplish this to some extent, but a) they only use the most recent songs and b) those songs are really only used for a party setting. If Marky Mark is the executive producer, I don't understand why he can't bring a bit more versatility to the show's soundtrack when it comes to hip hop. He did feature Saigon, I know... but he's lame, and he's a publicity hound. Sorry. There have been good hip hop soundtracks (though for bad movies), but there has yet to be the day when a compilation of all types of rap is the defining characteristic of an independent film that's a critical hit. Honestly, I am not even sure that is possible, given a probable cultural disconnect between someone like Richard Roeper and, well, me. It just strikes me as odd that this hasn't happened yet.
Supposedly, Kanye is performing Sunday. But who gives a fuck about a goddamn Grammy?
3 comments:
three things:
1. i think that the fact that the typical "indie movie" is about quirky middle class white people severely undermines any chance of hip hop being a major part of the soundtrack, unless it's in a totally ironic way. this doesn't really make sense, because there are a lot of quirky middle class white people that listen to hip hop in non-ironic ways, but i really think there are some race things going on here that i haven't thought about enough to properly articulate.
2. re: rappers using their names/the first person - what's to stop a rapper from writing a bunch of songs to soundtrack a movie? indie rockers do that all the time (see: belle and sebastian, storytelling).
3. juelz santana is an idiot.
also, we should watch this somehow (if you haven't seen it):
http://passionweiss.com/2008/01/25/pause-and-rewind-the-show/
i totally agree with your first point. i think the problem with making a quirky indie movie with a rap soundtrack is that even if the intention of the filmmaker was to show how important the music is to the mood or how it represents some moment in time, it's really hard for it not to seem like irony, putting them in a tough spot.
you make a good point about rappers writing in character names. it's probably quite easy, or even if the soundtrack followed the plot of the film from their own perspective.
i really want to see "the show." we should totally see it.
juelz santana, an idiot? but he's human crack in the flesh!
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