my Movie

Movie Details

Title:   Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap
Director:   Ice-T, Andy Baybutt
Year:   2012
Genre:   Documentary
Times Seen:   1
Last Seen:   11.29.12

Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)

Notes History
Date Viewed Venue Note
11.29.12Netflix Ice-T interviews like 50 dudes about what it is to be a MC. And this isn't like, he got a handful of big names and padded it out with nobodies. It's like the 50 top dudes in the history of rap. Really impressive. I'm sure there are but I'm hard pressed to think of an important or significant group or MC in the history of rap that isn't in some way represented here. He starts in NYC and talks to all the luminaries and pretty much anyone you think he missed he catches up with when he gets to LA (after a pit stop in Detroit).

He uses a really interesting technique of having most all of these guys either freestyle or recite their one of their favorite rhymes from any MC directly to the camera. It's very direct and really intimidating with some of these guys. You can definitely see where their power comes from.

I dunno, man. This might qualify as one of the definitive hip hop documentaries, perhaps THE movie about rap, along with Style Wars or Scratch for DJing and maybe Infamy for graffitti writing. I mean it's not 17 hours long so it's not going to be 100% exhaustively complete, but it gets to some real meat behind some of the biggest MCs out there. You almost wish it were longer just because there's so many people represented here that each person really only gets one scene but they all come off really well. Great movie.