Monteyne - Hip hop on film : performance culture, urban space, and genre transformation in the 1980s

Hip Hop on Film

Performance Culture, Urban Space, and Genre Transformation in the 1980s

Kimberley Monteyne

www.upress.state.ms.us

is a revised and expanded version of the essay The Sound of the South Bronx: Youth Culture, Genre, and Performance in Charlie Ahearns Wild Style, originally published in Youth Culture in Global Cinema, edited by Timothy Shary and Alexandra Seibel (University of Texas Press, 2007). Used by permission.

The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of American University Presses.

Copyright 2013 by University Press of Mississippi

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing 2013

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Monteyne, Kimberly.

Hip hop on film : performance culture, urban space, and genre transformation in the 1980s / Kimberly Monteyne.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61703-922-5 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-61703-923-2 (ebook) 1. Hip-hop in motion pictures. 2. Motion picturesUnited States. I. Title.

PN1995.9.H46M66 2013

791.43611dc23

2013015244

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

To Robert Sklar

Wild Style Reinvents the Urban Musical

The Economic and Racial Structuring of Youth Cinema in the 1980s

Breaking, Ballet, and the Representation of Race and Gender

I have many people and institutions to thank for the completion of this project. The scholars that I worked with at New York Universitys Cinema Studies Department have been instrumental in my own development as a film historian and in shaping the initial research that would eventually lead to the writing of this book. Antonia Lant taught me a great deal about historiography and navigating the archives, and it was through her that I first became interested in musical film. Robert Stam always offered unique critical perspectives that imbued my later work with a breadth and vitality not present in the projects initial stages. Richard Allen met my writing with demanding questions and insightful criticism as I worked to define the historical scope and methodology of this project. Ed Guerrero offered many helpful suggestions and criticisms. In particular, Robert Sklar, who has unfortunately passed away, met my research with challenging questions and meticulous attention to issues of style and historiography. He was extremely generous with his time and always encouraging in the face of difficulties and setbacks. I miss his thoughtful criticism of my work, his profound knowledge of American film, and, especially, his kindness.

This book would not have been possible without funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, who supported my work at NYU. The Cinema Studies Department at NYU also awarded me a grant as I completed the final stages of research on the project. I have been fortunate to live in New York City, a metropolis of outstanding research institutions. In particular, my work was greatly enhanced by access to archives at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. The new online Afro-American archive has enriched the project by facilitating access to the publication dating back to the teens. I also made use of film archives at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the American Film Institutes online collection of silent film company production summaries. The George Amberg Memorial Film Study Center in the Cinema Studies Department of NYU generously allowed me to view films pertaining to this project.

Gathering images for the book has been more demanding than I had initially anticipated, and the visual material has been amassed from a variety of sources, including the Library of Congress, the Afro-American, the New York Daily News, and the Chicago Defender. I would especially like to thank filmmaker and artist Charlie Ahearn for his assistance with the project. Firstly, I am grateful that he made the film Wild Style, which inspired the initial project, and secondly, I am indebted to him for providing all of the visual documentation of his film that appears in these pages. Joe Neumaier, film critic for the New York Daily News (and my neighbor), also deserves a special thank you for tracking down the photograph of Jimmy Tate that appears in .

Leila Salisbury, my editor at the University Press of Mississippi, has been supportive and enthusiastic about the project from the beginning, and I am grateful to her for selecting such thoughtful and knowledgeable readers for the manuscript. I would also like to thank Valerie Jones at the press for her assistance with visual material, historian Krin Gabbard for his astute and valuable criticism, my copyeditor Peter Tonguette, and film scholar Timothy Shary for his advice, close reading of the manuscript, and interest in my early scholarship on Wild Style.

My parents have been supportive of my academic career since my undergraduate days. I would not have been able to follow this path without their kindness and generosity. Many thanks also go to my good friend Holly Wood, who took care of my daughter when I didnt have the ability to simultaneously write and keep up with an active toddler. My husband, Joseph, who shares my interest in hip hop movies and music, deserves a warm thanks. He has been patient and kind during this process and also offered many fruitful suggestions and criticisms of my work. I must also thank my beautiful daughter Cleo, who taught me to value playtime as much as work time.

Hip Hop on Film

It is conventional wisdom that hip hop culture has become the main-streama multi-billion dollar industry that caters to the urban underclass as well as the wealthy suburban teen. Americans love success stories and no other cultural phenomenon is quite as demonstrative of the acquisition of material wealth as the rap video industry with its ever-present images of gold jewelry, luxury cars, bottles of Cristal champagne, and multi-million dollar pads. In fact, in the fall of 2008, high-end auction house Simon de Pury hosted Hip-Hops Crown Jewels, where one could purchase bling from the personal collections of Missy Elliot, LL Cool J, and the late Tupac Shakur. The auction included a microphone-shaped pendant worn by LL Cool J, Biz Markies pendant designed to look like a cassette tape, and a twelve-pound diamond encrusted necklace consigned by Lil Jon, which reads Crunk Aint Dead.

Hip hop has also made it in the world of academia where we find books, conferences, and entire courses devoted to its study. While Simon de Pury auctioned off Missy Elliots black diamond and gold turntable ring, the English Department at North Carolina A&T University offered a course entitled The History, Literary Connections, and Social Relevance of Hip hop. Cornell Universitys Music Department has conducted a graduate research course designed to utilize the institutions collection of hip hop print and ephemera; Georgetown University has structured an

Rap artists, because of their constant visibility in the popular music industry, are generally given the most attention in mainstream media, and likewise, academia has focused most intensely on elements of hip hop music. Hip hop cinema and films that feature a hip hop soundtrack have also received a moderate amount of study in scholarly circles, yet nearly all of this attention has been directed towards the urban centered so-called New Black Realism of the late 1980s and early 1990s, associated with the work of Spike Lee, the Hughes brothers, and John Singleton.