Via The New York Times

Melvin Van Peebles is a pioneer in black cinema, having directed, written, produced, scored and starred in what many people consider the first blaxploitation film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasss Song. The New York Times recently published a fantastic profile of Peebles’s attempt to turn Sweetback into a stage musical that’s essential reading, if only for passages like this:

In person Mr. Van Peebles is a throwback to the era of Afros and revolutionary rhetoric. His beard has gone ash white, but he still sports black leather vests and pants, purple-shaded glasses and vintage high-tops. He is rarely without a soggy cigar — occasionally lighted — or a bellicose zinger, like: “If somebody messes with me, it’s not a lecture they need. It’s a brick.”

Read the whole piece here.

Hip-hop fans may be more familiar with Peebles from Madlib’s prominent sampling of his music on his two Quasimoto albums; allegedly ‘Lib and Peebles were supposed to do a double album together back in ‘05, I wonder what happened to it?

Download: Quasimoto – Bad Character

Get up on a little of Peebles’ music too. Here’s “Come On Write Me” from his 1974 album, What The . . . . You Mean I Can’t Sing?!

(image source)

RZA gave an exhausting interview to the A.V. Club as part of his book tour for The Tao of Wu, his compendium of wild philosophical interconnections. If you skip all the mumbo jumbo, RZA actually talks about music and makes some surprising claims/revelations. It’s a daunting read, but c’mon, it’s The RZA.

On how he came up with the idea for Ghostface’s “R&B” album four years ago,

Ghost, I think, took my advice. I said, “Yo, we should do a love album.” I told him this four years ago, we should do a love album. I was going to produce it, he was going to rap on it, and we’d make it strictly about love. Just bring love. Everybody keeps bringing violence, let’s bring love. He wasn’t feeling it then, but now he has an R&B album where he’s bringing songs more sympathetic and shit.

On how “Gravel Pit” was originally meant for Aaliyah,

People thought that “Gravel Pit” was a bad decision. Now, I don’t think “Gravel Pit” was a bad decision, it was our first top 40 record as the Wu-Tang Clan. It was during the period where top 40 was important, and during the period that the European scene was really coming strong, and our sales were equal in Europe and America, and I wrote the song for Aaliyah, who we lost before she could do it. But it was written originally for Aaliyah, who was my favorite artist, and I felt every single she made was great.

On the possibility of an Ol’ Dirty Bastard biopic,

We have talked about it. His estate is pretty confused, like any estate is in our country. The estate is kind of confused on what to do, and all the rights and all that shit, but it’s definitely been talked about. There’s also been talk about a Wu-Tang Clan movie. So we’ll see what life brings. In my opinion, I’d rather see an ODB pic than a Wu-Tang Clan pic, because Wu-Tang is still alive, and may be active for a few more years. But an ODB pic, just to really describe his life, would be good. Right now, there is a documentary that’s done that’s pretty good. It ain’t a knock out of the park, but it’s pretty good, it gives a nice piece of him. Then you start with that, and we can build more awareness about his life, and build more interest in people seeing a movie about it.

What would be weirder, RZA x Aaliyah or Raekwon x Timbaland?

The A.V. Club via The Playlist

Bonus: RZA – You Can’t Stop Me Now (ft. Inspectah Deck)

off Digi Snacks

P and Buckshot link up over a 9th Wonder/Dan the Man thumper for the Black Dynamite soundtrack. Price kills this and those dialogue samples are a nice touch.

DOWNLOAD: Sean Price & Buckshot – The Feeling

Black Dynamite is an affectionate tribute to classic Blaxploitation flicks that comes out later this month. Here’s the very awesome trailer.

Via OnSmash

Looks like Minority Report meets The Matrix. Directed by Christopher Nolan, who has been on a roll since Batman Begins. The Prestige  was dope (beefing magicians? hell yeah) and of course everyone and their mom has seen The Dark Knight three times. I’m interested to see what he can do with a sci-fi flick.

Here’s the trailer for the Coen brothers’ newest movie, A Serious Man. Even though I didn’t like Burn After Reading and I didn’t like No Country for Old Men as much as everyone else did, I’m still riding with the Coen brothers off the strength of The Big Lebowski. A Serious Man is a dark comedy in the same vein as Burn After Reading about a physics professor whose personal and professional problems are driving him crazy. Trailer’s dope, anyway.

Despite the mixed reactions the movie has been getting, I’m amped to watch Quentin Tarantino rip apart some Nazis. I can tell there are some scenes that will require high-fives all around in the movie theater.

via ComingSoon.net

(Better footage as soon as it is found).

On the MTV Movie Awards Sasha Baron Cohen’s Bruno character (his 3rd best after Ali G & Borat IMO) dropped in a jock and landed his ass in Eminem’s face. Staged or not (I’m leaning towards yes, and hoping for Bruno’s safety sake that it is), this is must see.

Knobbz Update: Stop the hooplah. Em was in on it.

I was talking to Knobbz about Mike Tyson’s cameo in The Hangover, and his OG movie cameo in Black & White came up. Black & White is one of the most slept on movies ever, the Mike Tyson & Wu-Tang roles certify it as a cult classic. However, I never understood about why in the world Allan Houston was cast. If you haven’t seen it, check these clips:

Mike Tyson meets Robert Downey Jr.’s character with Brooke Shields & Wu in the background:

Bonus: Mike Tyson meets Raekwon & Inspectah Deck’s characters:

True story: my friend (not me, really) stayed up until midnight on the eve of his eleventh birthday to see if he would get a letter from Hogwarts.

He didn’t.

Bonus: The J.B.’s – Dirty Harry