Hip-hop fan's film decries its baser side

The rapper Nelly, in a music video, swipes a credit card on a black woman's butt.

The black women of Spellman College decry it. The black man behind the documentary, "Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes," condemns it.

And the black man in a recliner — Anthony "Sir Mix-A-Lot" Ray, who celebrated black women's backsides in his hit song "Baby Got Back" — argues the image can't be singularly used to attack the rapper or denounce hip-hop.

"I don't knock Nelly for doing it," he says. "But he has balance." Meaning, the "ugly" needs to be taken into account with the "good" — Nelly's charitable drives, which, in fact, are noted in the film.

Mix sits in his Auburn living room accented with platinum and gold records; a Grammy; 61-inch TV. We've just watched the hip-hop documentary airing on KCTS on Sunday night. The film, by Byron Hurt, delves into hip-hop's overarching themes: misogyny, violence, homophobia.

The filmmaker's goal is to define what it means to be a black man. In a director's statement included with press materials Hurt writes about wanting to continue a dialogue with viewing audiences.

So in that vein, homegrown Mix-A-Lot, who has been around long enough (he's 43) to see hip-hop's metamorphosis from underground to mainstream to wildly influential cultural force, agreed to give his own take on the film.

Mix's conclusion: "Beats" is must-see and won't be airing on BET anytime soon.

The film is wonderfully provocative and personal, packed with loads of interviews with rappers (Chuck D, Mos Def, Fat Joe), hip-hop executives (Russell Simmons), scholars, critics and fans. It explores the music's portrayal of black men as violent thugs preoccupied with guns, cash and sex. And the women as booty-shaking commodities described as "bitches" and "hos."

"Beats" is not for the faint of ear, or eye. The language is graphic; the footage sexually-explicit. But the film's power lies in Hurt, a college quarterback-turned-anti-violence educator and now, filmmaker. He doesn't treat hip-hop as some foreign being because he can't: He embraced the music as a kid and now, at 36, refuses to let it go. He's the central character, showing us his interactions with those who brush him off (Simmons) and those who startle him ("Did you say 'colored people'?" he asks a white fan).

This is a film you'll want to discuss.

"I'm glad they got Chuck D in there," Mix says, right off-the-bat, about the socially-conscious Public Enemy frontman.

In the film, Chuck D is eloquent in his critique about how the music perpetuates a culture of "black animosity"; and how hip-hop, once remarkably independently-produced and varied, has become mostly mass-marketed and single genre (i.e. gangsta rap). Corporations have "pimped" black-on-black killings, which he terms "black death."

BET, Chuck D says deep in the one-hour film, "is the cancer of black manhood in the world."

Mix applauds the rapper for the gutsy statement. (Something Mix can't stand is how the black community rarely criticizes itself.)

But the real culprit, he argues, is how hip-hop allows itself to be dictated to by music conglomerates, specifically Clear Channel, in a quest for profits.

When rapper Jadakiss talks about wanting to make popular music — even while his is filled with violent imagery — Mix says he's just being honest. He won't fault the guy for wanting success.

Filmmaker Hurt confronts Jadakiss about his violent lyrics. The rapper, in turn, asks: Do you watch movies? What kind of movies do you watch?

Hurt responds, Good question, and he cuts to footage of "Rambo," "Scarface," President Bush in military garb vowing to smoke them out.

"That's very true," Mix agrees, about the widespread violent imagery.

When an aspiring rapper talks about a lack of demand for positive black images, Mix nods. When the film calls out how often black artists praise one another — how much they love "their boys," but rarely talk about loving their women — he also concurs.

A part that riles him, though: footage of hyper-sexualized "Spring Bling." "That's not hip-hop. That white kid in the truck [music blaring], that's really hip-hop."

He reacts strongly to the segment when a white woman calls hip-hop her sort of tour guide into black America. "That's really, really sad," he says.

But it's the film's primary point about "manhood" that really gets him afterward. Men have increasingly become too wussified; shying away from acting strong and powerful; too reluctant to flaunt, say, their wealth; too worried about praising a woman's looks lest they offend.

"I trip when people say it's sexist," he says about "Baby Got Back," whose video looks oh-so-tame by today's standards. But don't get rid of the gyrating women — or the images of women in stilettos who step on men, he says. "Put it in perspective."

He adds: Save the put-downs for the black men who father children and then don't pay child support.

Florangela Davila: 206-464-2916 or fdavila@seattletimes.com