Wow! Such a good movie.

That was an excellent one.

A Masterpiece!

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Biz Markie, Talib Kweli, Meth, RZA, GZA, Ghost, MOP, Busta, Lauren Hill, Slick Rick, Outkast, EPMD, Everlast, LL, Jay Electronica, Lupe, Jay-Z, Eric B, Beastie Boys, Flav, Ren, Too Short, Boo Yaa Tribe, De La, Jungle Brothers, Das EFX, DMX, King Sun, King Tee, The Roots. These are just some of the names that don't feature in this wasted opportunity. I love Ice T but he's missed a trick here in my opinion, really not taking in some people who for me would be glaringly obvious to speak to about the origins and art of Hip Hop and how it has grown and shaped the genre. In addition it's almost criminal for me that he spoke to people like Rakim, Ice Cube, Chuck D etc for literally seconds, while indulging others who are arguably less deserving for ages while they freestyle, pontificate in stupid faux-philosophical mode and reel off almost entire songs from their back catalogues. Not disrespecting Kanye but did he warrant a full song, when time might have been better spent talking to Erick Sermon, Black Thought, Mike D, or Big Boi, for example? Also, not too many (if any) mentions of the impact made by Guru, MCA, B.I.G, JMJ, etc. The interviews were also pretty lame and cosmetic, and had little in the way of structure. Many simply pandered to ego, rather than unearthing some fascinating insight. Surely more time with Chuck D & Rakim would have produced this. Or delving deeper into the inception of NWA with Cube, rather than listening to Snoop offer cringe worthy nonsense dressed up as prophetic advice. Was really looking forward to this but ultimately felt a bit let down. I guess there would always be someone left out that would cheese people off, but this should have been much better.

Let me mention a few things at the top. The documentary by Ice-T does not have every MC in it. Not every rapper could have fit into the running time obviously, but you do wonder where someone like Jay-Z is? Maybe he'll be in the additional interviews that are on the Blu Ray/DVD as a special feature. Ice T did not react to a tweet I send him concerning that matter, but he gets so many tweets, he might have missed that one. He also concentrates his effort on MCs and not the producers or other artists involved in the making of a track.As he said himself, his great motivation to do this, was his wife Coco. They were in the car and she bluntly told him, she doesn't care about the lyrics to a song, as long as the beat is nice. You can imagine Ice-T was pretty shocked by that statement, being an MC himself and working hard to make his own lyrics work.The movie also does only involve American artists. If you're eager to know what French, Korean, British or other rap cultures are about, this will not satisfy you either. But again, there is only so much you can put in a movie. Having pointed out those things, the documentary is really light and shines the spot light on quite a few talents. If you're a fan of the music, you should know most of them (even if they're not active anymore).You get a lot of freestyle and a lot of little stories thrown into the mix. Other reviewers have mentioned a book that is out there, which is supposed to be good. I haven't read it, so I have to take their words for it. I might get that too, as an addition to the movie

I was quite looking forward to this film, having been away when it made its very brief appearance into UK cinemas. The film presents itself as a documentary on rap music in light of how massive it has become as a genre and, as a fan of some aspects of hip-hop, it was something that interested me. In reality it isn't actually a documentary so much as it is a very loose celebration of the genre and those involved in it from the start. Ice-T presents, directs and various other roles and the whole film is him chatting with fellow artists about their first introduction to the music, their thoughts on it, favourite lines and so on. There appears to be no real structure other than what has been put in afterwards and as a result the value of the film is limited.If you are looking to learn about hip-hop as a genre of music and how it grew and developed then this is not the film to come to. Conversely, if you are already a fan of the music and know your history then this film will offer the same to you as it appears to have offered to Ice-T – a chance to shoot the breeze with lots of artists all talking with passion about the music they love. This is where the film works best and it is not a good thing that it does so. Even fans of the music will struggle with some of the ways time is spent here because it feels padded at times and also some of the artists don't really have a great deal to say. The interviews are quite weak in terms of their direction and I did get the feeling that they had not been particularly well prepared for and that the film was relying on the subjects to just be good. Luckily some of them really are but of course this trust also means that at times the contributions aren't worth a great deal other than the name of the person involved.As much as I love him, Q-Tip was one such example; it was great to have so many names involved but it would have been better to have had fewer and make more use of them. The credit for the many, many artists involved rests with Ice-T but unfortunately as presenter he is unable to draw the best from his subjects. Indeed he often seems too fond of himself and there are multiple slow-motion walking shots of him along with far too many obvious helicopter cityscapes. He is not bad per se, but at times he gets in the way of his own film and some of this selection of material seems to speak to his ego rather than the content of the film.There is plenty here for older fans of the genre though, but this is different from it being a good film, because it really isn't that good. As a documentary it offers little and it really does need the viewer to already be in the right place to watch it. As a fan of the music and the culture, I liked it, but I would be lying if I said it were a good film in and of itself.

Hip-Hop heavyweight Tracy Marrow, better known as Ice-T, travels from the East to the West coast to interview dozens of rap's finest to provide a 360° perspective on the art of rap, and establish why this subversive underground movement has quickly become the most lucrative musical genre in the world. Many can rhyme words; few can do it with panache. To prove this, we're treated to several tantalising tongue-twisters from the likes of Eminem, Kanye West, Nas and Mos Def (now known as Yasiin), although some legendary MCs let themselves down by delivering feckless freestyles. Rappers being rappers, they all claim credit for being the first to do this or that. No one really bothers to answer the question at the heart of this documentary. I wanted the history and truth about rap. Afrika Bambaataa and KRS-One – two from the Old School – deliver knowledgeable insights (slave-era camaraderie prefigured battle rapping, the turntable was turned into an instrument), but after a while the contributions become monotonous, irrelevant, uninteresting and surprisingly, given that these are purported wordsmiths, inarticulate. Ice-T becomes more interested in kicking back with his homies while they smoke unfeasibly big joints and rap along to classic hip-hop tracks. Ice-T promises follow-ups to his directorial debut, for which I have a piece of advice: When cats like these end their sentences with 'Nah mean', i.e. 'Do you know what I mean?', for our sake, please find out what they mean.www.moseleyb13.com