WAKE N BAKE

In which Erin informs you of the best movies to blaze to

Well friends, all things must come to an end, and our Wake n Bake Summer Music Mockumentary Festival is no exception.  (Technically, summer lasts until the end of September, but I thought it would be shitty to remind people of outdoor concerts and fun just as school starts–for those of you deluded suckers that still think getting a degree is not just another way to get royally fucked.)  For our final installment, we close with Fear of a Black Hat (1993.)

The shoestring budget movie didn’t make a lot of money–which is a shame, because it’s damn funny.  It might not be the most well put-together flick ever made, but come on, they made it for, like, $69.  And this is a column about blazing–lo-fi shit is sort of our idiom.  The film shows us a year in the life of a gangsta-rap group N.W.H. (N***z With Hats) as they weather censorship, the white man, and some serious dissing from the Jam Boys.  Let’s light up and watch it all go down.

Sociologist Nina Blackburn (Kasi Lemmons) is the documentarian here, hoping to capture what N.W.H.’s fans are getting out of the music produced by these three lunkheads.  Ice Cold (Rusty Cundieff) and Tasty Taste (Larry B. Scott) spit rhymes while Tone Def (Mark Christopher Lawrence) spins the records.  They parody acclaimed acts like N.W.A. and Public Enemy, but these guys are not exactly poets.  They believe they’ve got their finger on society’s pulse, when all they’ve really found is one of its throbbing tumors.  (The funny kind, though.)  While N.W.A. released hits like “Fuck tha Police,” N.W.H. fry up some smaller fish with “Fuck the Security Guards.”  But despite their comparative mediocrity, they’re no less controversial than their real-world counterparts, having many brushes with censorship law for songs such as “Kill Whitey,” “My Peanuts,” and “Booty Juice.”  (Ice issues several dubious explanations throughout the film on how lyrics about getting “P.U.S.S. Why?” are actually serious political statements.  He often resorts to acronyms, which have nothing to do with the word they spell out.)  Before N.W.H.’s set at their first concert on tour, some police officers inform the band members that uttering the words “shit” or “dick” onstage will result in immediate arrest.  Facing the inconvenience of holding cells, the guys decide to change the words to less colorful fare, just for tonight.  They almost succeed.

There are other troubles in paradise.  Ice Cold’s growing detachment from the group (and a fateful encounter with a starfucker) leads N.W.H. to disband in anger, and the guys each pursue solo careers that lampoon different incarnations of 90s hip-hop culture.  The results of Ice’s new career path are too funny to give away, so for those of you who haven’t seen the film, I’ll keep it to myself for now.  But trust me, you’ll recognize it instantly.  And elementary school will come rushing back full force, so prepare yourself.

As enjoyable as it is, the film’s not perfect.  There are a few missed opportunities for long jokes that could have beefed up the comedic substance considerably.  It’s not that the film isn’t funny, it’s that it can be withholding at times.  In an early scene, the group’s manager informs them of a wardrobe snafu–their hats have gone missing.  The boys insist that they can’t go onstage without their headwear–they’re N***z With Hats, after all.  After a moment, the manager fashions a Peter Pan newspaper hat and puts it on Ice’s head.  But the joke drops out of the race when Ice explains the importance of their “hat philosophy,” and the guys take the stage with their Cat-in-the-Hats having been found or replaced.  I was looking forward to the confused audience’s reaction to N.W.H. performing their set wearing these childish origami disasters, getting newsprint all over their shit.  I mean, imagine if Spinal Tap’s manager had simply decided to throw the tragically understated Stonehenge monument in the trash before the concert.  That’s just a recipe for severe comedy blue balls.  (Fortunately, weed works wonders in alleviating the symptoms of many diseases, and comedy blue balls is a real disease.)

They’ve got them blues.

But while the movie scrimps on long haul jokes, it invests lavishly in flourishes and attention to detail (never mind the uncanny replication of 90s hip hop music and the ridiculous lyrics, which are a baker’s delight.)  All three band members’ outfits are constantly laden with no less then three beepers–no one ever says a word about it.  Ice Cold shows off a picture of his son standing on his hands, with his torso clad in pants and his legs stuffed through a shirt–Kriss Kross taken a step further.  Tasty Taste shows Blackburn his extensive gun collection, taking much pride in it while displaying ignorance on even the simplest of the specs.  (“Do you know the caliber of all these guns?”  “Yeah, this one here is for the little motherfuckers.  And this one here is for… a couple more motherfuckers.”)  And through all of their antics, Blackburn nods her head thoughtfully, taking them completely seriously (well, most of the time.)  The filmmakers aren’t skewering gangsta rap, they’re getting it in a headlock and administering knuckle scrubbings.

I must confess I’m fudging the categories a bit, here.  I don’t consider all comedies to be “stoner films” just by virtue of the fact that they’re comedies.  (On the other hand, I’ve shied away from covering classic genre-labeled stoner flicks like Half Baked, Smiley Face, etc., since I figured those had already been written about at length from an herbalist’s perspective.)  So while I don’t think there’s much about this movie that can be specifically radically altered by smoking (aside from the nostalgia element), it’s obviously still going to improve with a good haze, like any comedy.  (I really just needed another mockumentary to round out my themed selection, leave me alone!)  Watch it.  “It [would] be the def, fresh, chill thing to do.”

Thusly, we wrap up our festival gear, pile back into our friend’s car, and whatever you do, don’t get pulled over unless you’re sure you’ve smoked all your shit.  (Actually, I’d advise you to not get pulled over anyway; they’ll probably smell it on you.)  Thanks for listening to some jams with me.  See you in two weeks.