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Celine Dion was moved to tears on Monday night (June 17) after she received a standing ovation at the New York screening of her Amazon MGM documentary, “I Am: Celine Dion.” Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “Thank you to all of you, from the bottom of […]
After delighting fans with her flashy new Michael and Janet Jackson-nodding “Alright” music video, Victoria Monét is keeping the Black Music Month celebrations going with an appearance in Amazon Music‘s new Save The Music: Inspiring Music’s Next Generation documentary (June 18) alongside frequent collaborator D’Mile.
The latest in a string of programming in honor of Black Music Month, Save the Music follows Monét and D’Mile as they visit public school students at Brooklyn’s Transit Tech High School, gifting them valuable insight on the music industry and providing them musical equipment and a D’Mile production masterclass.
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The Transit Tech students are undoubtedly learning from the best. D’Mile’s work with R&B stars such as H.E.R. and Lucky Daye have earned him several Grammys and an Academy Award for best original song, while Monét picked up her first three Grammys earlier this year thank to her acclaimed Jaguar II album. D’Mile produced every track on Jaguar II — save the Kaytranada-helmed “Alright” — earning him and Monét a shared victory for best R&B album.
The journey back to the classroom was also a trip down memory lane for D’Mile, who recently re-teamed with Monét for “Power of Two,” a new original song for Disney+’s The Acolyte. “I used to cut class just to stay in band class or my school gospel choir almost all day,” he muses. “I met my now wife at jazz choir class. My favorite memories are the friends I made there, they were all like-minded and talented. I’m still great friends with and still playing or working with [them] professionally in some way. It’s a bond you can’t replace.”
Firmly rooted in R&B, Jaguar II finds the two musicians exploring the vast expanse of Black music, dabbling in reggae, house, hip-hop and soul. Save the Music: Inspiring Music’s Next Generation grants both D’Mile and Monét the space to reflect on the importance of Black Music Month and take part in the sacred traditions of educating younger generations on their cultural history.
“So many genres stemmed from Black artists and musicians: rock and roll, country, disco, house, R&B, soul, techno, rap … the list goes on,” notes Monét. “I love that there’s a month dedicated to educating others on and celebrating Black music, but my hope is that in general, music by Black artists is celebrated in all genres one day. Motown was a breeding ground for so many incredible Black musicians and icons (from The Jacksons to Diana Ross to Stevie Wonder to Smokey Robinson) who truly made quality, POPular music.”
Fittingly, Monét and D’Mile chose to record a new version of “Hollywood,” the penultimate Jaguar II track, for Save the Music. Earning a Grammy nod for best traditional R&B performance, “Hollywood” is a prime showcase of the cross-generational appeal of Black music. The track features the legendary Earth, Wind & Fire, as well as Monét’s adorable two-year-old daughter Hazel Monét Gaines. The new acoustic version of “Hollywood” strips away the grandiosity of the original’s cinematic drum-heavy arrangement, making for a much more intimate and introspective affair.
“I knew I wanted to keep in all the organic elements from the original,” reveals D’Mile. “Which was interesting because about 90% of the song already was organic. But sometimes when you do something as simple as just taking drums out, you start hearing things that you want to be heard more. You get to focus more on some of the string work or even background vocals on the song. It was as simple as taking the groove out and just holding down the chords and letting everything else shine.”
Just as she does on “Hollywood,” Monét’s music is both a love letter to Black music history and a way for her to expose her fans to styles and influences from decades past. The music video for her breakout hit “On My Mama” exalts ’00s Southern Black culture, while Jaguar II standout “How Does It Make You Feel” recalls the classic soul of The Isley Brothers. “Some of my first memories are of the music my mom would play around the house and that helped shape me as I grew older,” she says. “‘My Girl’ by The Temptations is already my daughter Hazel’s favorite song – I’ve played it since I was pregnant with her. Great music really can stand the test of time.”
The reimagined version of “Hollywood,” whose creation is documented in Save the Music, can be streamed in full exclusively on Amazon Music, where the mini-documentary can also be viewed starting Tuesday (June 18).
After putting together a special concert to lift up incarcerated women, Melissa Etheridge is further amplifying her message of self-worth with a new docuseries titled I’m Not Broken — the release date of which was announced Monday (July 10), along with a new trailer. Premiering July 9 on Paramount+, the two-part series will follow the […]
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Source: dream hampton / It Was All a Dream
One of the culture’s literary pioneers is sharing her journey with the world. dream hampton has released the trailer to her new documentary, It Was All A Dream.
As exclusively reported by Variety, the esteemed writer is going into her personal archives for her newest endeavor. This week, Hampton released the trailer to her forthcoming film and she makes it clear she was really moving and shaking during Rap’s golden era. In the 90-second clip we see footage of her interacting with the likes of the late great Notorious B.I.G., Method Man, Snoop Dogg, Q-Tip, Ice-T, Mobb Deep and more.
In it she narrates each piece of archival footage in relation to the original writing assignment that featured the respective talent. Hampton detailed how the project came about in a formal statement. “Last summer, I was moving my daughter across the country and found two boxes of footage I forgot I had and spent the last few months making this film,” she explained. She would also reveal that Notorious B.I.G.’s son, CJ Wallace, was the first person to see the film and encouraged him to be one of the executive producers. “I named it It Was All a Dream not because of my name or ‘Juicy,’ but because of the golden haze that has cloaked this era.”
dream hampton has written for multiple publications and once served as the Chief Editor at The Source magazine. You can watch the trailer below.
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The trailer for the upcoming Hulu four-part music documentary series Camden features a number of A-listers singing the praises of the influence the London neighborhood has had on their music and careers. The 1:44 trailer for the show — executive produced by Dua Lipa — features the “Houdini” singer, as well as Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Noel Gallagher, the Libertines’ Pete Doherty and Nile Rodgers describing how inspiring the Camden scene was.
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“Camden, so full of life and music,” Martin says over images of graffiti, punks hanging out and sweaty rock clubs. “It’s got a heartbeat, it’s got a vibe, it’s got an energy to it,” adds former Oasis co-founder and High Flying Birds frontman Gallagher.
Dua shows up as well, walking into a record store and doing the time honored flipping-through-vinyl-in-a-bin bit as she says, “I don’t think you’ll find a single record store in Camden that doesn’t have an Amy [Winehouse] record.” The teaser also features Doherty describing spotting Noel Gallagher’s estranged brother, former Oasis singer Liam, in the city and wanting to play him some of his band’s music.
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“There’s so much legacy here,” Dua says in the trailer of the place she says has a vibe of “radical acceptance,” as the Roots drummer Questlove adds, “It’s the place where stars are born.” Martin also tells the story of his band’s first-ever gig as Coldplay in Camden on a bill where they opened for a headliner who took their drum kit away, forcing the band to play the stage as the bass drum.
“We were celebrating women’s lib, gay lib, Black power, through our music, it all happened in Camden,” Chic leader Rodgers says.
The series that premieres on Hulu on May 29 was directed by Asif Kapadia (Amy, Senna) and also has contributions from Mark Ronson, Little Simz, Carl Cox, Madness, Boy George, the Roots’ Questlove, Yungblud, Black Eyed Peas, Public Enemy’s Chuck D and more.
In a post sharing the trailer cued to the Libertines’ “Don’t Look Back Into the Sun,” Dua wrote, “CAMDEN!! this is a big full circle moment for me and i’m so proud to be an executive producer and to have worked on a new original documentary series that celebrates the very place I started everything!!! Camden will always have a special place in my heart and I’m humbled to share that with some of my absolute musical heroes.”
Watch the Camden trailer below.
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Imagine a hardcore Black gangsta rapper going toe-to-toe with a wild-eyed white indie rock freak in makeup and shiny black leather pants, as the two repeatedly, gleefully, refer to one another using racial slurs. Then imagine those two men clasping hands and giddily doing a same-sex waltz on stage in front of 15,000 screaming suburban kids to celebrate their transgressive tango.
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That is one of the first images — as well as the very last — that you will see in the new three-part Paramount+ documentary series Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza, which premieres today (May 21). The sprawling doc, directed by Michael John Warren (Free Meek), uses the electric scene of Jane’s Addiction singer (and Lolla co-founder) Perry Farrell singing Sly and the Family Stone’s incendiary 1969 anthem “Don’t Call Me N—er, Whitey” with OG gangsta rapper Ice-T during the tour’s inaugural 1991 run as a framing device, to explain how and why Lolla changed music festivals in America forever.
It is one of Farrell’s favorite moments from the madcap ride through the fest’s three decade run, during which it blossomed from a multi-act touring anomaly to the industry standard for touring fests, before shrinking, floundering and finally relaunching in the early 2000s as a stay-put in Chicago — with tentacles that now reach throughout South America, Europe and India.
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“I wasn’t thinking [about a] documentary at all,” says the eternally bright-eyed, future-focused Farrell, 65, during a Zoom call. “Because I feel our best work is ahead of us… people usually do documentaries at the end of things and I feel that Lolla is just getting started.”
It’s a classic Farrell forward spin on the festival he originally launched in 1991, as a swan song for his genre-defining alt rock band Jane’s Addiction. After falling in love with such well-established multi-day English festivals as Reading, Farrell and his partners — late promoter Ted Gardner, agent Don Muller and SAVELIVE CEO Marc Geiger — cooked up the idea for a traveling fest that would bring the best of indie rock to the masses.
Before the commercial internet, before cell phones or texting, freaks and geeks could only go to their hometown rock clubs or find each other in their local record store as they browsed the racks and flipped through zines like Maximum Rocknroll. After launching with an initial 1991 lineup topped by Jane’s and featuring Siouxsie and the Banshees, Living Colour, Nine Inch Nails, Ice -T & Body Count, the Butthole Surfers and the Rollins Band, Lolla quickly became a safe haven for the indie diaspora.
For a generation of musical misfits who loved art, nature and peace, it was the place where no one judged you based on how you looked, who you loved or what you listened to. Goths sat side-by-side with metal heads, grunge moppets shared space with indie nerds and hip-hop heads and everyone realized that they were not the only outsiders in their hometown.
The full story of Lolla is a wildly sprawling one, and director Warren says wrestling it into a three-plus-hour doc meant crawling through 20,000-30,000 hours of footage, much of it courtesy of MTV News, which thoroughly covered the fest for years. Luckily, there was no one on the planet who seemed like a better fit for the job.
“Every morning [my research team] would send me an email that felt like Christmas,” says Warren of the difficulty of discerning what to keep in the project given his embarrassment of taped riches. As much as he wanted to include the incredible full Pearl Jam sets from 1992 — during which singer Eddie Vedder would climb perilously high into the stage rigging and take death-defying leaps into the crowd — Warren says he had to remind himself to put his fan boy hat to the side, despite the huge impact the fest had on his life and later, career.
“It was personal for me, since I was at the first Lollapalooza when I was 17 years old in [my hometown of] Mansfield, Massachusetts,” he says. “I had not seen the world at all and me and my weird friends in an avant garde jazz band thought we were the only ones who felt the way we did about things that we were pissed about.” But as soon as he walked onto the Lolla grounds, he says, he found his tribe.
“There were thousands of us there — and if there were thousands there, there must be millions all over the country and the world!,” Warren recalls thinking. It’s a sentiment repeatedly driven home in the film by the pierced, punk haired and black-clad masses who may have come in the first few years for for Alice In Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys and Dinosaur Jr., but who left turned on to Fishbone, Sebadoh, Royal Trux, A Tribe Called Quest, Stereolab, Shonen Knife and dozens of other less radio-friendly alternative acts.
Undaunted by the mountain of material, Warren set out to tell a roughly chronological tale of how Lolla grew from a scrappy idea for a traveling carnival, using just a handful of key voices instead of the sometimes overwhelming barrage of talking heads in other music docs. Farrell and his partners are key players, of course, with the former Jane’s singer acting as a kind of spirit guide for the entire journey, on which he’s joined by artists including tango partner Ice-T, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, Chance the Rapper, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid and L7’s Donita Sparks.
“It felt like a revolution,” Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor says in the doc of the accepting, electric vibe that saw audiences embrace his then-new band’s industrial earthquake of sound and chaotic vision.
They all tell the tale of how Lolla not only blew minds with the music on three stages, but also expanded them by providing space for a wide breadth of social, environmental and political voices.
With an early focus on offering information from a diversity of interests — from PETA to the National Rifle Association, pro-choice group NARAL, Greenpeace, vegetarian organizations and petitions to overturn the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, Lolla looked to blow minds with information as well as sonics. “I didn’t realize we were so ahead of the curve with gun control [and abortion rights],” Farrell says, adding, “It’s an ongoing process of blowing people’s minds from year-to-year.” Farrell continues to believe that the purpose of the festival is to expose the audience to the new, young rebels in music and to spread their message across the globe: “We never thought about the status quo, we only thought about he truth, what I considered radical fun with my friends.”
The film elegantly takes you through an initial year nobody was sure would hit, to a sold-out second run with the Chili Peppers, Lush, Jesus & Mary Chain, Pearl Jam, Ice Cube and Soundgarden. It chronicles registering thousands of voters each day, adding the stomach-churning Jim Rose Sideshow Circus to the mix, as well as a second (and later third) stage that exposed audiences to such then up-and-coming acts as Rage, Tool and Stone Temple Pilots.
All along, in addition to focusing on the attitudes and gratitude of the audiences, the doc weaves in elements of the larger culture at the time, from Tipper Gore’s PMRC slapping profanity stickers on albums (and Rage’s full-frontal protest of that move from the Lolla stage), to the missed opportunity to book Nirvana during their prime and the constant gripes that the event had gone “too mainstream.”
It traces the path of increasingly mega lineups, a return to punk roots and a 1996 Metallica-topped lineup that was not only controversial, but also the initial sign that just five years in, things may have begun to go sideways for the festival as a panoply of other package tours — including Ozzfest, Smokin’ Grooves, H.O.R.D.E. and Lilith Fair — took flight. After a final 1997 run with a mostly techno/electronica-focused lineup of Prodigy, Orbital, the Orb, Tool, Tricky and Korn, Lolla petered out and went silent for several years.
All along, though, Warren says the footage showed him that — as Morello says in the film — Lollapalooza was like a “Johnny Appleseed,” spreading the word about hip-hop and alt rock, and how much bigger the world outside your hometown was. Elsewhere in the film, Morello calls the trip from the underground to suburban amphitheaters across the country, the “Declaration of Independence of the alternative nation.”
“It was really important to tell the story of the cultural context, which happens in the very first episode,” says Warren. “What I’m proud of in our film is that you actually understand what is going on in America — not just about the music, but about the cultural revolution in youth culture. How kids were f–king pissed about the environment, gun safety and these things that are so painfully relevant today. It was almost mind-numbing to go through these things and see that the stuff we were so upset about are as bad as ever today.”
Warren points to that first taste, in which he saw Ice-T and his hardcore band play their then-controversial anthem “Cop Killer,” and his fear that they were all going to get arrested for indecency, along with the nearly naked Farrell and Jane’s. Warren says his impression of that inaugural tour was how “extremely dangerous” the whole prospect felt to him then. That narrative line of pushing the boundaries and connecting the dots between formerly disjointed music tribes is the crucial through-line of the film, and the festival.
After the 1997 meltdown, the third episode focuses on the fest’s phoenix-like rebirth in Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan, where Lolla put down roots in 2005. Taking the show off the road has allowed it to sprout wings, growing into a massive annual event in the Windy City, as well as at satellite locations in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Paris and India.
“I think [Farrell] wanted it to be truthful and I know when he started seeing cuts it really struck him — this sounds self-serving — how good it was, and he was really relieved,” says Warren of the journey through the highest highs, lowest lows and almost inconceivably eclectic lineups over the years. This year’s event in Chicago will feature headliners SZA, Tyler, the Creator, Blink-182, the Killers and more.
With one eye always focused on the next adventure, Farrell takes a long, considered pause while contemplating the question of what Lollapalooza has changed in the larger culture and whether the movie gets any closer to capturing that shift.
“I think that I can’t take credit for anything Lollapalooza does,” Farrell says with a smile before unleashing a perfectly Lolla notion of what it all has, or does, mean. “I work, I serve [Rastafarian God] Jah, Jah makes the decisions … I just try to follow Jah’s direction.”
Check out the trailer for Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza below and watch it on Paramount+ now.
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The long-awaited first authorized documentary about Led Zeppelin, Becoming Led Zeppelin, has been acquired by Sony Pictures Classics, which will distribute the Bernard MacMahon-directed film in North America, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia (except Japan) and Benelux.
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According to Deadline, the hybrid documentary-concert film features never-before-seen footage, performances and music and is described as an “experiential cinematic odyssey exploring Led Zeppelin’s creative, musical and personal origin story,” told in their own words in the first officially sanctioned movie about the band.
The hype train for Becoming began in 2021 when a work-in-progress version was screened at the Venice Film Festival, receiving a 10-minute standing ovation. The film follows the band’s four members — singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist John Paul Jones and late drummer John Bonham — as they rise up through the British music scene in the 1960s playing in small clubs. It follows them to a fateful rehearsal in 1968 that changed the course of their careers and culminates in their first tour of America in 1970 as they ascended to rock superstardom.
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According to Deadline, the film features a new sound mix, previously unseen materials from the archives of all four members, including home movies and family photos, as well as exclusive interviews with Page, Plant and Jones, and never-before-heard interviews with Bonham.
The movie was written by MacMahon (American Epic) and Allison McGourty, with the director saying that the team spent “years designing this film to be experienced on the big screen with the best possible sound.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Sony Pictures Classics added, “We loved this film from the first moment we saw it. It has been nothing short of extraordinary to witness the organic process Bernard, Allison, and their team have taken to sculpt what has turned out to be THE definitive film on the origins of Led Zeppelin. We are honored to be working with such committed artists who have crafted a film that immediately transports you right into the energy and excitement of that time.” The rep went on to note that the film “seamlessly weaves astonishing performances, archival footage, and interviews through superb editing and impeccable sound design. This film is a grand theatrical experience and we are very proud to be bringing it to the world.”
At press time no release date had been announced for the film, but you can watch a teaser prepared for the Venice debut below.
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Bruce Springsteen was born to run, which, for the past five decades, has meant touring all over the world with his E Street Band. Now, a film documenting the group’s rehearsal process and famed performances is coming to Hulu and Disney+ this fall, as announced Tuesday (May 14). Premiering on both streaming platforms in October, […]
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Source: Redsummer TV / Tale of the Tape
HipHopWired got to exclusively chat with the director and producer of Tale Of The Tape, a new documentary detailing the creation and history of mixtapes in Hip-Hop culture.
The mixtape is a vital component of Hip-Hop culture, and as Hip-Hop has recently celebrated its 50th year of existence, the history of how mixtapes originated is getting its time in the spotlight thanks to a new documentary. Tale of The Tape is a new film that shows the rise of mixtapes and their impact, with Royce Da 5″9′ narrating the journey.
The film features appearances by DJ Drama, DJ Clue, the late Combat Jack, Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole along with DJ Envy, who serves as a producer. Tale of The Tape is directed by Malik K. Buie, the CEO of the film’s production company Red Summer TV. The veteran Hip-Hop journalist Kim Osorio is also a producer of the film and Red Summer’s chief content officer. The hour-long film gives viewers a look into these artists’ views on mixtapes and how greatly it affected their careers and perspectives.
Hip0Hop Wired had the chance to speak exclusively with Buie and Osorio about their passion for making the film and the journey it took to finish it and have it be part of the culture’s growing archives.
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HHW: So, to get started, I wanted to ask right off, how did the process begin to put this definitive documentary together?
Malik K. Buie: This began many years ago, over 10 years ago, to be honest. I was producing for Rap City and other platforms. Like any Hip-Hop head, mixtapes were an integral part of my youth. As I did a lot of interviews and traveled and documented things I always found that mixtapes were kind of like the common tissue to DJs, artists, everybody who was able to reach any sort of success. Or to be able to reach any sort of crowd. They all had a story of, “This mixtape inspired me, this mixtape influenced me, etc.”
And it’s funny because I remember thinking, “Well, I really want to do something based on mixtapes.” We posted about it the other day, a designer that I used to work with said to me, I remember, we sketched out the logo on a napkin, at work, for ‘Tale of The Tape.’” Again, well over 10 years ago. So that was a big part of why I wanted to do the film, I wanted to honor the DJ, I wanted to tell the story of—we see all these really large mainstream artists, whether it’s Drake, whether it’s Kendrick, whether it’s Nicki, whether it’s Cole, they all achieved their success based off their mixtape. But nobody really knew the story of how these mixtapes started with Brucie B and those guys. And of course, Hip-Hip aficionado Kim Osorio. She knows a lot about the subject, and it just made sense for us to partner up and do what we do.
Kim Osorio: I’m glad that he gave you some context as to when it started because I can’t remember. It’s been such a labor of love and a work in progress. We used to have a column when I worked at The Source called Hip Hop One-on-One. And that was a column where we felt like it was our responsibility to educate as well as you know, entertain. And so I think with this here, what we wanted to do was to make sure—it was a responsibility of ours, right?
Especially with where mixtapes are now, for us to be able to say, “Wait, we love the culture, we love mixtape culture, we want to report on it.” But more importantly, we want to make sure that people understand the history. And we want to document that because these days, you see how quickly everyone is just changing the narrative. So for us there, we were teaming up just as fans really. Mixtapes, because I collected them. I used to think I was a DJ. You know, I’m not gonna talk about my turntables and the mixtapes that I used to make. (Laughs) That was a shameless plug.
To this day, right, one of my favorite things to do is to be a DJ, like build playlists. And if you really know me, a lot of people don’t notice about me. I think I’m a DJ, I had [Technics]1200’s. Everything. If you really know me, you know that I love to sequence music, and I love to build playlists. And I send playlists to people that are close to me. It’s like a love language of mine. Everything with me comes from Hip-Hop, everything. That’s how I was taught how to consume music, through a mixtape. I wanted to pick the songs that I wanted to pick. Even to the point when blend tapes were big, right? We want to take these vocals and put it over this instrumental, we want to hear it the way we want to hear it, in the order that we want to hear it in. That sort of curation of music is something that has always fascinated me. So doing this was a no-brainer because a lot of people, a lot of kids coming up to date even listening to Hip-Hop, they just don’t have the same experience. It’s a whole different game. We have to document ours.
HHW: What were the challenges in making the documentary? I noted how the process was, but what were the challenges that stuck out the most with documenting and telling the story?
Kim Osorio: Trying to be a perfectionist? (Laughs)
Malik: (Laughs) So, one, we’re both perfectionists. Look, this is a Red Summer TV, Buffalo Eight production, we’re pretty much self-funded for a lot of this. And, you know, that’s probably the main challenge. I want to have three cameras, I want to have jibs swinging in when we do these interviews, etc, etc. and the resources said different. We would’ve loved to speak to a few more folk. But sometimes that’s kind of what it is. The plan is, of course, to make this a series moving forward. Me and Kim joke a lot, because there were some things like I will write, she’s like, “Oh, I don’t like that, just throw it in the trash.” And she’d do her version of it. So I have to acquiesce because that’s what it is. But if there’s a certain look, a certain way. I’m gonna be like, “Nah, Kim, this is what I want.“ And so yeah, when starting this out years ago, I honestly thought it would take a year maybe, and we’d be done with it any day. And as the story kept changing for the mixtape DJ, it’s fine. We went right along with it as you can see, with what D’-Nice did with Club Quarantine. It’s a part of mixtape culture and history.
Kim: I think that when I talk about being perfectionists, I feel like anything that we approach, we’re always trying to do our best. But really, the challenge for us becomes just letting it go. Because the execution of producing this, that’s the hard part. We can ideate over it all day. We can talk about the things that we left out in the story, like the interviews that we couldn’t get, that was something even Malik and I went back and forth on for a while. I feel like, for years. We wanted to open up the doc and say, “Okay, let’s get more interviews in” and at a certain point, you just have to say, “No, we’ve got to get it done and get it out.”
So, the creating and putting it together when you know that the story is just so much more than just an hour. Right? You can’t squeeze everything into an hour. So for us, I think it was being able to stop and just say no, like, it’s time to let it go. And we can, you know, do more. Do a part two, and keep going.
HHW: And so, that takes me to my final question. And that is, how do you both feel about being able to have this documentary available as Hip-Hop celebrates 50 years?
Kim: I think we have a duty, now that we’ve reached Hip-Hop 50 to continue to do more of this type of content in these pockets of all of these different facets of Hip-Hop. I jokingly say all the time it’s “Hip-Hop 51” because I don’t want to lose the celebratory feeling that we had last year with everything we did for Hip-Hop 50. We can’t stop telling these stories just because we haven’t reached a milestone number. And I think we saw that with Hip-Hop 50 because we saw how great it was just to be able to celebrate the culture in that way, and to celebrate the history because you don’t get a lot of that. You know, when you said last question, I said, “if he asked about Kendrick and Drake, I’m gonna hang up this phone.” (Laughs) But seriously, when you asked the question about Hip-Hop 50, I felt like that was something that we talked about with Tale of The Tape. We’ve talked about how, “Is this something that we’ve considered as part of Hip-Hop 50 content? And that’s when I say it’s Hip-Hop 51.
Malik: I’m ecstatic that this project is available to the masses. As Kim said, we have a duty to tell our stories and dictate the correct narrative. I had an OG-slash-mentor tell me years ago about filmmaking. He’s like, “Look, you want to leave a legacy with what you’ve created.” And this is part of it to us. 100 years from now, I would love for a student of Hip-Hop to be able to watch this in whatever format, right? To see my name, see Kim’s name and the people that were a part of it. So they can be able to say, “Okay, this is what I’ve learned.” That’s super, super important. I feel extremely blessed to be able to have this out in the universe, extremely fortunate to be able to have partnered up with Kim to tell his story. And it’s here forever, period. I’m good with that.
Tale of The Tape is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, and Verizon and Spectrum networks.
Cyndi Lauper never considered another option. The flame-haired singer whose colorful sartorial flare and Betty Boop voice had music writers desperately searching for synonyms for “quirky” in the 1980s will tell her life’s story in the upcoming biopic Let the Canary Sing.
The feature-length film that debuted at last year’s Tribeca Festival in New York was directed by Emmy-winning documentarian Alison Ellwood (Laurel Canyon) and will debut on Paramount+ on June 4. “Over the years I’ve been asked to do a documentary about my life and work, but it never felt like the right time,” Lauper, 70, said in a statement about the film. “Until now. When I first met Alison Ellwood, I knew right away I could trust her to tell my story honestly, which was incredibly important to me, and she succeeded in that. I’d like to thank Alison, the producers, and all of the amazing documentary participants who agreed to be interviewed!”
The trailer for the doc dropped on Tuesday and it opens with a scene from the video for Lauper’s 1983 ballad “Time After Time,” in which the singer is seen schlepping her giant duffel as she leaves a trailer park. “Everyone always said, ‘what will you do if you fail?’ And all of a sudden we all heard it,” Lauper says in voiceover over the irresistible strains of her 1983 breakthrough hit, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”
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The 90-second trailer takes us all the way back to little Cyndi’s Catholic school days, during which it became apparent, she says, “how stubborn I could be.” Singer/actor Billy Porter weighs in on Lauper’s embrace of queer culture in the sneak peek, noting that at that time, “queer people weren’t allowed to be queer and out. It was our allies having the conversation.”
The trailer also features Culture Club singer Boy George praising Lauper for doing whatever she wanted to and legendary R&B singer Patti LaBelle calling “Time After Time” one of her “favorite songs ever.”
Legacy Recordings will release a career-spanning companion album that takes listeners from the singer’s early days in the group Blue Angel (“I’m Gonna Be Strong”) through the global breakout success of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and other iconic hits such as “True Colors,” “I Drove All Night,” “Money Changes Everything,” “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough,” “She Bop,” “All Through the Night” and more.
Watch the trailer for Let the Canary Sing below.
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