Monday, November 19, 2007
Radio of the Streets
Digital video creates more opportunity for non-fiction films of all varieties. And non-fiction film is a unique way to see and hear from unique folks you would have never ever known about. Folks such as Curt Nice, who has a record store of apparently mostly bootleg recordings in his mother's basement in East Cleveland. In Mixtape, Inc. a rambling but intriguing documentary of the mixtape culture in hip hop, he is honest about there not being any difference between bootlegs and mixtapes, but nice is clear about th service he provides and takes pride in his literally underground capitalist enterprise. "You got to know your product." If Curt was in my neighborhood, I'd surely stop by from time to time to find out what's happening.
Where is the sound? What is hip? In the film, DJ Red Alert, one of the old school particpants in mixtape culture said its like drugs, if you are interested in it, you know where to get the good stuff. In the story of hip hop mixtapes, things started out with DJs like Kid Capri and StarChild who first gave away their tapes then began to charge for them. By 1993, cassette mix tapes turned into CDs and there was money to be made. In the years that followed, mix tapes went from street corner sales to mom and pop music stores like the one in Curt Nice's Mom's basement. And since big money was involved, the record companies were supplying content (either directly or over the transom) and using street mixtape culture as a means to find new talent.
Mixtapes, Inc. covers the story of how the RIAA went to make an arrest in 2003, a music store owner in Indianapolis, Alan Berry, was charged with 13 felonies, which through a defense of jurisdiction was able to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor of selling a CD without the address on the case. Berry was a strange and desperate target, especially since as Mixtapes, Inc. points out, the companies represented by the RIAA are so deeply involved with the current culture of mixtape DJs and hip hop. In the summer 2006, I wandered into a downtown Cleveland record store that seemed to be wholly stocked with mix tapes. I didn't feel like I was in a felonious location--it just seemed curious to be in a record store with so much unrecognizable stock.
Mixtape DJs blend, remix, jack beats, go frestyle and rap on top of content, and sometimes get exclusive tracks (directly or indirectly.) Questions of bootlegging, stealing content, legitimacy and record company complicity resurfaced in swirls during the two hours of interviews in Mixtape, Inc. And director Walter Bell didn't even explore much of the impact of where we are now in Mid 00 decade with the ubiquitous Internet where an entire generation doesn't go to Tower or Virgin for their music first and where the culture of mash-ups has expanded and exploded well beyond the mixtape world he portrays. And I was struck by the fact that most of the players in Bell's film story are now in or nearing their thirties (Kanye West, 50 Cent, DJ Green Lantern, Joe Budden) and more embedded in the mainstream of American culture, if such a thing really exists anymore.
So as you read this, KNOW there are hundreds of kids in hundreds of bedrooms and basements using the net and its content sculpting something their friends will dig, it will somehow challenge and create danger to the infrastructure of American capitalism, but eventually some of what they touch will be the Eminems and 50 Cents of the future who will be able to trace their roots in mixtapes and turntablism as Rock and Roll and soul can connect with blues, country/folk, and gospel that went on before. And those beats will go on until others replace them and expand from them once again.
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:11 AM
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