VH1 And It Stopped, finally

After an auspicious opener, the VH1 series quickly devolved into a documentary in name alone. Each episode featured fewer and fewer artists, and focused exclusively on artists in the top 1% of sales.

There was almost no mention whatsoever of...

Native Tongues
De La Soul
A Tribe Called Quest
Anticon (for historical reasons)
Freestyle Fellowship (a brief mention of the Pharcyde)
Rawkus (nor Mos Def, Talib Kweli, etc)
Fondle Em
Loud
The Roots (yet they included about 15 different excerpts from an interview with ?uestlove... VH1 LOVES that guy)
Common
Alkaholiks
Cypress Hill (a notable exclusion)
Def Jux
Kool G. Rap
EPMD
Kool Keith
Stones Throw
DJ Premier, RZA, Large Pro, Pete Rock, Jay Dee, Madlib, etc (no love for producers was shown!!)
MF Doom
Gang Starr
Brand Nubian
D.I.T.C.
Rap Olympics
Supernatural
ITF/DMC
Invisibl Skratch Piklz
Beat Junkies
Xecutioners
Allies
etc.
etc.
etc.

If they had kept pace with the first episode, there would have been more than enough time to fit in all these folks and still have time for the obligatory East-vs-West stuff. The last episode treats the regional diversity of hip hop as something of a revelation.

Every story has to have its orientation and basic premise. For VH1, that orientation was hip-hop-as-seen-through-the-lens-of-the-mass-media. It starts in New York. Then it was big on the West Coast. Then the South caught up and schooled everybody. And now it is so diverse... we have no way to tie it all together. And yet they so neatly packaged it for us!

The real story of rap music is that there have been several concurrent streams running side-by-side since those early days in the South Bronx. In the first episode, a lot of time is devoted to the actual influences on the music. We find out who was stealing rhymes from whom. We find that there were these different schools of thought, often in contradiction and opposition of each other. We find this tension between keeping it real and mass appeal. We get to see the vampires up close and personal.

The latter parts of this series acknowledge the diversity and different streams, but tell us absolutely nothing about what we hip hop heads and hardcore rap fans have known all along: that there are a few very distinct schools of thought with regard to hip hop. Most people fall somewhere in between schools, but it is hard to deny the fact that Scribble Jam, ITF, DMC and b-boy and DJ crews have don't much overlap with the fanbase of your typical radio fan. And yet wasn't Eminem -- THE pioneering white artist and backpack-bred rapper -- who made his way through this circuit with appearances at both Scribble Jam and Rap Olympics. Didn't Strecth & Bob and Sway & Tech host the first major performances by artists like DMX, Jay-Z, Biggie, etc??

Hip Hop has long distinguished itself from other genres by the dynamism of its indpendent networks, known affectionately as the underground. After Amazon.com, the largest sellers of hip hop online are Sandbox Automatic in New York City and Hip Hop Site in Las Vegas. There are about a dozen magazines dedicated that cover hip hop not necessarily heard on the radio. Live hip hop is as much dominated by arena acts, as it is by independent artists who slowly carve out niches across the country. One of the best examples is Atmosphere, who sell into the 100.000 unit level and yet Atmosphere has had no significant radio or TV exposure.

Let's just say they missed a big part of the story. But more importantly, they missed a certain spirit that is essential to understanding hip hop in the 1990s and 2000s.

But above all else, there was little mention of some of hip hop's most defining aspects:

freestyle emceeing
DJ battles
legendary crews (DITC, Liks, Project Blowed, etc)

Yes, I will give credit where due. Bill and his crew did a great job with the first part. They were clearly being careful not to miss anything. Unfortunately, parts three through five succumbed to something much worse than "VH1 Syndrome" I mentioned in my first piece on this documentary. Bill and his crew succumbed to basing their history on the same old timeline of "the only significant artists after 1988 were Wu-Tang, Biggie, Tupac, Outkast, and Lil Jon".

Of course I am expecting too much from VH1. Maybe Bill shouldn't have done such a good job with the first part. Because now I know the series didn't suck for lack of ability. It sucked because he bowed to pressure from VH1 to have three full episodes dedicated the the NWA-Biggie-Tupac story. ZZzzz...

Who knows... maybe 20 years from now I will help produce a documentary that will actually do justice to the post-1988 history of rap music. One thing is for sure... you can rest assured I wouldn't leave out the DJs. They might not look as sexy on camera as a shirtless guy with machine gun tattoos and bullet scars... or a girl who can't keep her boobs from falling out on stage. But at least I would be sure to get the full story out there.