|
  Kevin Fitzgerald Interview
interview 0347 added 15.11.05 words: Kate Nowakowski and Tony Camara
technical:
QED
Kevin Fitzgerald is the Director behind the
fantastically in depth and real documentary - Freestyle The Art Of Rhyme.
During the tour to promote the film they stopped off at Manchester's C-mon
Feet and new correspondents Kate Nowakowski and Tony Camara
managed to grab a few words with him...
 Kevin: The whole idea about the film was to try to tell the story of the emcees but have them do it, and have them do it in an improvisational way, to tell the story of what the whole scene was about, all the different battles. Our main hero is actually Supernatural, who Craig G beat – well, Craig G first beat him, in the beginning, at New Music Seminar I think in ‘93 or ‘94, and then [Supernatural] came back and beat him and so they had this on and off rivalry. So Supernat was gonna come on the tour but he was like ‘nah, I don’t wanna do it’, cos it was gonna be Juice and Craig G who he both beat, so he didn’t wanna take a chance you know, of something jumping off. [Laughs] I think, I don’t know! He says he’s recording his album, and doing another tour…but we love Supernat, he’s the homie.
So what’s it been like in Europe? Is the reception of the film any different over here from the USA?
It’s been good, it’s been really good, Europe’s been cool. Japan is REALLY different, but Europe is extra different too, it’s almost like in America they’re like ‘oh, we already know this stuff’, they don’t appreciate it as much as Europe – I think the Europeans are more into looking at hip hop in a classical…cultural context, they appreciate it more - as opposed to the Americans who just look at it as some kind of throwaway culture that’s just a part of pop culture, they don’t really care about it yet. It’s something different so you’re more interested in it. Just like people in the states are interested in Drum and Bass.
And more recently the UK Grime scene? I hear that’s been getting attention in the US lately?
Yeah - M.I.A is big. I’ve never actually heard one of her songs, but she’s kinda everywhere in the media in America, in all the press.…Like Dizzee Rascal, people were seeing that and they were trippin’ on it, The Streets - people were like, ‘oh that’s cool’…but some people are not really feeling him anymore out here. They’re kinda like ‘yeah, whatever.’
“...I think the Europeans are more into looking at hip hop in a
classical, cultural context, they appreciate it more - as opposed to the
Americans who just look at it as some kind of throwaway culture that’s
just a part of pop culture, they don’t really care about it yet...”
What’s up next when you’re back off this tour? Still promoting the film or new stuff lined up?
I gotta new movie I’m working on, new script, it’s a love story. It’s called Tokyo DJ, and it shoots half in Tokyo, Japan, and the other half happens in the western United States. It’s like a DJ love story. It’s gonna be Hot. Check it out!
Are you heading for big things with this one or are you keeping it underground?
 I want it to do both. I want it to be real independent and artcore real, but also…I want it to get a little bit more up there, yeah. Even though Freestyle was on MTV in America, who we had a deal with, and got a lot of distributors - Universal and Palm Pictures in the UK and the States - and we played in the theatres for like…4 months in Japan, it was really big out there, and New Zealand, Australia, but we don’t have a distributor in Europe yet, so I’m kinda pissed - just the UK. So Groove Attack, Nocturnal, What’s up?
It came out around the same time as 8 Mile…
Eminem didn’t want to be in the movie because a lot of our emcees actually beat him in battles - we didn’t know about the footage or whatever, we saw the footage and were like ‘oh fuck, so three of the emcees that are in our film that are the heroes, beat Eminem’...we had been like ‘why won’t Eminem want to be in the freestyle movie if that’s how he got his rep?’ but his manager’s like ‘nah he’s making his own freestyle film’ – which was 8 Mile.
If you were a fifteen year old kid, which film producer’s autograph would you want?
Which ones did I look up to? Spike Lee, um... Spike Lee was a major influence for me. Next one was…Stanley Kubrick, I really like Stanley Kubrick a lot.
A different question. Do you think that films like Wildstyle & Beatstreet paved your way?
Totally, totally, you know what, it’s trippy because that’s how people learned about hip hop all over the world, like through Flashdance, people started breaking after they saw Flashdance, it’s true, that’s how people learned about how to dress, what the moves were, people had heard what they sounded like, but…films like Stylewars and Wildstyle, they were so important in terms of telling people what hip hop is, cos you could only hear it so much and wonder – the music videos are kinda… wack, but to see a film of the culture and life, and you’re like - wow, and the kids are like ‘ok, I dress like that, I move like that’ and so they had so much to teach people about hip hop. So we – me and my friends, other filmmakers in America, we started this thing called the hip hop film festival, where we could actually go and show our films, our hip hop films, around the world to people, that we made, because there’s no platform for that, and we’ve done like 30 cities worldwide, but we haven’t done London yet, or any in England…
Do you think there’s a glass ceiling for black multimedia companies?
 Well yeah, it’s there, but it’s about money and power and who controls it – you can make yourself powerful, with money...
Do you want to make yourself powerful?
Well, yeah, because you can get your message across, you want to put the message out there that hasn’t been represented in the mass media. G Unit and 50 Cent are everywhere because of the power of Universal, not because 50 Cent is an amazing emcee - he used to be a great freestyler when he was on mixtapes and when he was hungry but now, it’s all about money and it’s about ego. I think it’s cool when you are coming from a place of skills, and that ego is skills of writing, if the ego and the skills are together, but if it’s just pure ego and pure corporate money it just becomes wack to me. I’m not dissing 50 Cent or anything, but…
But can you get that power without becoming a part of that corporate industry?
I hate to say this - it’s like a cliché - ‘keeping it real’: it’s like hip hop – that’s what makes it so interesting – that’s the essence, is that it speaks to hypocrisy and that’s why everybody loves it so much because you can say exactly what you wanna say in a flavour that supposedly is looked down upon by the establishment but actually is making a lot of money and your kids are buying it and spending your money to buy it, and wanting to talk like that and so the whole culture becomes this subversive..
“...hip hop… the essence, is that it speaks to hypocrisy and
that’s why everybody loves it so much because you can say exactly what
you wanna say in a flavour that supposedly is looked down upon by the
establishment but actually is making a lot of money...”
It Infiltrates?
Yeah infiltrates – but it’s also intelligent, so creativity, intelligence, power, aggression…
So do you think that sort of commercialism has dumbed down hip hop?
 ‘Yeah of course, definitely, but you know what – you need money, so you can use it in a positive way, in a powerful way, the only thing is it’s very tempting to become corrupt, it’s very tempting to say, ‘hey here’s a million dollars, use these producers, have some ghost-writers, blah blah blah, this is the formula…’ I mean not many people are strong enough to say ‘no, I’m not gonna take it, I’m gonna do it my way.’ Except for those emcees like Pumpkinhead, and Wordsworth, and Craig G.
What’s the best of what’s not in the film?
Oh there’s so much stuff, there’s like Biggie and Tupac, rhyming together when they were friends – but I couldn’t put that in because there were some legal issues involved with them.
Really?
Yeah! Like Tupac and Biggie freestyling together? You know how much…?
So that’s not gonna see the light of day then?
Nah I can’t – I know too many people involved with that footage I can’t use it, it’s too hard, I’ve dealt with many different lawyers, it’s just not –
(Interruption of Craig G wanting DVD to give to someone)
It’s like non stop with these guys – Craig G is crazy – you should have seen him in Germany in the airport just... ‘lederhosen’, he was freestyling lederhosen all day, it was crazy…I mean it was just like ‘What? Who the hell is this guy?’
Is there gonna be a Volume 2 with the stuff that was left out of this one…and are you still filming now?
I’ve been promoting the film for a couple of years now, going to film festivals, and DJing, doing these shows - we’re on like the seventh day of the tour and the emcees tell me not to say this but I’m kinda burnt out on the whole thing - I’ve seen the film, I’ve heard all the music, I’m just – I wanna sleep! But the thing is, I’m on the tour and all the emcees want me to film all the time, and there’s great stuff happening and sometimes I film but it’s just like – I can’t do it any more, I’m burnt out, ‘93 to 2005, it’s like 12 years…. The camera is in that bag, and the batteries ran out in Holland and the tape is at the end and that’s it now…There will be no Volume 2…this has been the hardest thing I ever done in my life!
-
Kate Nowakowski and Tony Camara
Related Links:
 
|
