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Hip-Hop News Plus Tupac Shakur Info |
Recent posts at Ill Moves: Hip Hop Dance:
Dance on Sunset: Fergie & Soulja Boy
Video Contest/Audition: Chilli Seeks 'Dumb, Dumb, Dumb' Dancers
Auditions: America's Best Dance Crew 2
Carla Stalling Huntington's Hip Hop Dance: Meanings and Messages
JABBAtv.com: Jabbawockees Thank America
So You Think You Can Dance Canada
How She Move Step Dancing DVD & Soundtrack
Cash Camp Crankin Dat YANK!!!
According to The Smoking Section, Cash Camp were the originators of the Crank Dat dance phenomenon and the song Crank That (Soulja Boy).
I'd love to hear more about this but I think Gotty's scared of looking soft!
The Atlanta Ballet - big
The Atlanta Ballet will premier big on April 10th with choreography by Lauri Stallings and music by Outkast's Antwan "Big Boi" Patton including "new, never heard Big Boi material interwoven with classic masterpieces such as Verdi’s La Traviata."
Check the Atlanta Ballet site for video and background information.
Guerilla dance marketing is being employed in such locales as London, Copenhagen and Sydney to promote Michael Jackson's 25th Anniversary of Thriller release.
BreakSk8 of Kokomo, IN
As Randy Jackson Presents America's Best Dance Crew draws into its final elimination rounds, ProHipHop brings you the last five crews standing before this evening's 10 pm showing on MTV takes them down to three.
More About: BreakSk8
Fysh N Chicks of Los Angeles, CA
More About: Fysh N Chicks
JabbaWockeeZ of San Diego, CA
More About: JabbaWockeeZ
Kaba Modern of Irvine, CA
More About: Kaba Modern
Status Quo of Boston, MA
More About: Status Quo
[All Photos courtesy MTV/Chris Polk except that of Status Quo courtesy Warner Bros.]
So DanceJam finally launches and it's kind of underwhelming.
Not that there's anything particular wrong with it except that why did it take so long to launch a product that doesn't seem to use the expert content they put so much time and energy into developing?
It is possible that it just got lost in the categorization schema that doesn't really do anything to forefront premium content.
The simplicity of the platform, which is a good thing, does raise the question of why didn't they just use KickApps and launch months ago with MC Hammer as the figurehead?
I assume embeddable videos are to come but they don't seem to have them yet though that was also mentioned as a feature.
In any case, it's good to see it finally launched and we'll see where it goes from here.
Update:
Here's why they can't use KickApps. Nobody will let you play with $4.5 million for a KickApps project.
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
DanceJam to Launch in Mid-January [Maybe]
ProHipHop Takeaway from MC Hammer Interview: DanceJam to Stack Major Skrilla
Hammer and Geoffrey Arone Meet the Press w/DanceJam
MC Hammer Survives TechCrunch40, DanceJam Soon?
Ciara's holding auditions for unsigned dancers for work related to her next album. Auditions began today in Atlanta and continue in Miami, New York and North Hollywood.
This is a good look if the dancers are getting pro contracts.
It's also a great way for Ciara to publicize her upcoming album, though no title or release date is mentioned in the press release or YouTube video.
Plus it's a nice boost for the dance studios where the auditions are taking place.
Step Up 2 The Streets Music Video Mash Up
I know ProHipHop readers are super-excited about the Valentine's Day premier of Step Up 2 The Streets!!!
This should be a fun dance movie and probably a great date movie as long as you're not too hung up on plot details and so forth. It's all about hotties in motion.
Bottom line: Hating on dance crazes is a waste of time!
Step Up 2 The Streets official sites:
MySpace ~ YouTube
If you're a weirdo who likes to read reviews or geek out on credits:
IMdB ~
Rotten Tomatoes ~
Wikipedia
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Albums: Step Up 2 The Streets Soundtrack #13
Step Up 2 The Streets Soundtrack w/Flo Rida, Missy, Plies
Now DanceJam is expected in mid-January!
There's nothing new in this article and no explanation for the extended delay in launching the site so there's no real reason to hold them to it if it doesn't happen. They're lucky no one else was pursuing a similar concept.
Via Blogs Is Watching.
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
ProHipHop Takeaway from MC Hammer Interview:
DanceJam to Stack Major Skrilla
4 hours and 14 minutes into my 12-hour day at the ProHipHop office [when I started working on this post] and I'm ready for a big nap!
Doing quality posts takes a while but I have some legitimately easy ones ahead, just as I would on any normal day.
I've discussed the idea of 24 hour blogging as endurance art but my own experiences with time-formatted art has been in dance improvisation contexts.
When I was studying dance at UNC-Greensboro from 1977 to 1982, with a year at SUNY-Purchase from '80 to '81, I was especially focused on modern/postmodern dance and started doing a lot with dance improvisation.
One form of improvisation I explored quite a bit was simply improvising for an hour with a group of like-minded folks and no audience or additional agenda other than productive use of the time and space. We rarely used music in such settings but did explore sound making quite a bit. No drum circles, no huggy hippy fun, just hardcore postmodern dance.
Such a situation puts the dancer back on his or her own resources in a way rarely encountered in technique classes and choreographed performances or even in club settings. One has to decide why one is there, what one is going to do and how to relate that activity to the other folks in the room without external motivators such as music or a choreographer.
Having a set hour gave one enough time to fully explore whatever one needed yet gave a solid boundary to the event. Most often these would be weekly meetings and though such experiences affected our choreography, including the use of improvisation in performance, it wasn't really about anything beyond the art and craft of improvisation in the wake of postmodern dance.
My year at SUNY-Purchase in '80 and '81 changed a lot of things for me as a dancer though I did not take the obvious path of finishing there and heading to New York. Sometimes I wish I did because there was a lot of creative energy at SUNY-P at the time as well as in Manhattan but that's the road I didn't take.
But I did have the experience of my first 12-hour improvisation, a class project schemed by me, Laurie Roth and a woman whose name escapes me at the moment. It came out of our work in Mel Wong's Experimental Forms class and our shared interest in the 60s and 70s avant garde across art forms.
It was an amazing experience because the work wasn't just about doing something every hour but about going into a space with no audience, just improvisors, and paying attention and working for 12 hours. We also included various forms of art making that resulted in a documentation show of sorts though it didn't really document the event.
For me it was an important lesson in encountering blocks and working through or around them because stopping wasn't an option. I came out of it with a sense of transformation, a state that I continued to seek in various forms, including additional 12 hour projects at UNC-G (1982) for my senior thesis and in Durham, NC a few years later.
I think having such low-key but meaningful experiences as one aspect of my life as a working artist is what led me to this 12-hour blogging experience as a long day at the office with the intention of achieving at least a slight transformation in my understanding of what I'm doing at ProHipHop.
And now it's 1:46, almost an hour blown in self-reflection.
Time now for microblogging action!
Or a power nap. Whichever comes first.
I talked to MC Hammer today about the rollout of DanceJam and also checked out the current version that is gradually growing by invitation and should soon be open to everyone. You can catch up on the back story and some of the positioning via the links at the end of this post.
The basic deal is that Hammer is working with cofounders of Flock to create DanceJam, a dance-centered social video network, and that he deserves the Chief Strategy Officer title because there isn't really a proper title for the full range of what he brings to the table.
MC Hammer: Chief Strategy Officer
Prior to the interview I had not picked up on the fact that Hammer, in addition to being a legitimate cofounder, was being called Chief Strategy Officer. Unfortunately I think my surprise at the title showed all too clearly and I managed to stumble my way into a poorly articulated question that Hammer fielded quite gracefully.
After going over some necessary background, Hammer clarified what he does in his role as Chief Strategy Officer, a role that draws fully on his wide-ranging background in dance and music performance:
curating original premium content
sharing creative and technical insights from the world of music videos
building a relationship with the dance community that is offline as well as online
connecting with his marketing contacts and partnering with ad agencies
While some of this sounds like strategy and other parts sound like something else, it all sounds quite important to the success of an operation at a time when just opening the doors is no longer enough.
DanceJam's Current Incarnation
The still-in-progress version I saw today featured four main categories:
Dances - information on particular dances with example videos from members. Hammer says that a how-to component is coming that will teach not just general steps but stylistic variations.
Competitions - these are set up as video battles with multiple videos grouped together for comparison and rating.
People - member pages.
Videos - featuring uploaded videos that can be viewed by most recent, most popular, etc.
DanceJam loads quickly and isn't stuffed with bells and whistles which I'm sure helps explain the great performance. How that will work when people flood this thing and ads begin to appear remains to be seen but the current incarnation runs quite smoothly.
The site has been prepopulated not just by sending out invitations to folks that want to check things out but by making some of the first videos with dancers around the country. Hammer says they put together a team and went from city to city, setting up a comfortable space to video and getting lots of footage from talented locals.
According to Wired:
The company has already profiled 160 cities and traveled to six major metropolitan areas to gather video footage and enlist local experts.
Videos will be embeddable and such initiatives as a dance channel at MySpace are in the works so this isn't going to be a walled garden by any means. In fact, DanceJam is participating in Google's OpenSocial initiative.
DanceJam will also be consciously connecting on and offline worlds with events and related initiatives.
DanceJam: The Urban Dance Video Social Network?
I asked Hammer if he was concerned about the possibility of being labeled "the urban dance social network" and not being able to expand to the much broader range of dance that they clearly plan to include.
Hammer's answer: Cheerleaders!
DanceJam is planning on connecting with cheerleaders at all levels and benefiting from the fact that they already have a deeply entrenched competitive culture to fuel their involvement. Cheerleaders and such related phenomena as dance teams connect to urban music as well as other forms while representing a wide range of social groups across the country.
Hammer also expressed hope that their how-to videos could help end what he described as the "butchering" of social dance moves on the dance floor, i.e., he's going after the Dancing With the Stars demographic as well.
ProHipHop Takeaway: DanceJam to Stack Skrilla High
At this point I'm fully convinced that DanceJam could be a huge business and it's their's for the taking.
Some threads that, if successfully woven together, will produce many duffel bags stuffed with skrilla:
serious investors
solid software and a knowledgeable team
smart prepopulation of the network
the ability to customize campaigns for marketers
urban dance and Hammer celebrity juice to kick things off
overlapping dance crazes:
hip pop dances, dancing with the stars ballroom dancing
dance and related activities are an ongoing important part of people's
lives whether or not a dance boom is happening
connecting on and offline worlds:
the events game is a big part of making money in the dance world
dancers buy specialized gear like crazy
it's a music play that doesn't have to directly compete with established music websites
this list could be longer
Yes, I see huge stacks of skrilla bags woven from the dance of life!
I ended my conversation convinced that, despite kneejerk responses, Hammer brings a deep set of resources to this project. Such resources could easily be the deciding factor that will allow DanceJam to avoid a potentially disappointing fate as simply the first highly visible dance-themed social video network and instead lead DanceJam to a Blue Ocean future.
PR & Back Story:
Official Press Release
Wired's Listening Post
SF Gate [plus video]
TechCrunch
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Hammer and Geoffrey Arone Meet the Press w/DanceJam
MC Hammer Survives TechCrunch40, DanceJam Soon?
Peek at MC Hammer's DanceJam, Dance Party 3D Launches
MC Hammer Blogs With Heart
Earlier Roundup of Hip Hop Social Networks:
Hip Hop Social Networks: XXL, Indie HipHop Online, DaHoneyHouse.com?, RapHappy, Loud.com, Global Grind?, iNTERNETS CELEBRITIES?, List of Priors
Just got off of a great interview with Hammer regarding DanceJam. May not be able to write about it till tomorrow but one of the interesting aspects was reading the online coverage by people that interviewed both Hammer and cofounder Geoffrey Arone, who is also a Flock cofounder. The pieces were from interviews done earlier today so I was able to read them beforehand and skip a lot of basic questions.
Wired's Listening Post:
MC Hammer Hops Onto Dance Craze With DanceJam
SF Gate:
Hammer teams with entrepreneur to create interactive dance site
I missed the tag team presentation but I did get a lot of nice stuff from Hammer.
DanceJam is still in private beta and may take a few more weeks to open up since they are committed to getting it right. It looks good on brief examination and I tend to take them at the word regarding opening later than announced.
More soon.
Youngsters Crank Dat in Dance Class
MIT's Henry Jenkins relates his own experience of the Crank Dat phenomenon and the work of his students who include Xiaochang Li. He mentions that Xiachang's post "generated some interesting responses from the hip hop blogosphere". More importantly, Xiaochang joined in the conversation beyond the psychic walls of the University.
Xiaochang Li's participation in the blog-based conversation regarding Crank That (Soulja Boy) and the Crank Dat dance phenomenon is a nice example of how blogging has allowed many boundaries to be crossed between individuals in diverse contexts.
My experience of academia was that, even in interdisciplinary settings, conversations were often tightly siloed and speaking with people outside the University got fancy titles like "Public Intellectual" to offset the fact that the very act of going public earned those scholars disrespect.
Related Coverage at Melatone Music:
For Clyde Smith - Check comments for my critical response to the pathetic performances of the NBA rookies.
Video via Altrap.com.
Though DanceJam, a Web 2.0 site with which MC Hammer is involved as an "advisor", still hasn't gone live you can get an early look via TechCrunch.
Actually I'm taking that on faith cause the video isn't working for me but KRON 4 covered the demo pit at TechCrunch 40 and Michael Arrington, who's an investor in DanceJam, says they got some footage.
Here's Don Dodge's description of a DanceJam demo:
DanceJam can best be described as YouTube mashed up with American Idol. Users can contribute their own dance videos to the site for others to see and vote on. The DanceJam people set up "Dance Offs" where they put two dance videos up against each other and have the user community vote for a winner. After several rounds of voting they declare a champion.
So the community contributes and rates content with recurring Dance Offs to add drama.
Kaneva has launched Dance Party 3D which seems a bit more ambitious than DanceJam.
According to the press release:
Dance Party 3D, a free, casual game...is the first virtual world-based, massive multi-player online (MMO) dance game where hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe can simultaneously bust out cool moves on the dance floor, compete and win dance battles, spin hot playlists, party at amazing clubs and even build their own rockin' 3D nightspot.
I haven't checked it out closely though I like the fact that not only does it offer dance activities but you can also design your own club and play dj. It does say you can choose facial features and skin tone, so I assume it doesn't have to be a dance world of whiteness, but I think having a more multicultural look to the avatars in the opening graphics would be a smart marketing move.
Either of these projects could do well depending on implementation and luck. We're in the midst of a serious dance boom so I think there's lots of room for unexpected growth with one or more of these dance-focused projects.
Related ProHipHop Coverage:
MC Hammer Survives TechCrunch40, DanceJam Soon?
The Federation's College Girl Dance Contest
Though it seems a bit unfocused so far, The Federation is promoting their single College Girl off the upcoming It's Whateva with a YouTube College Girl Dance Contest.
The video above explains that one must submit one's video to www.youtube.com/fedtv where there is currently no information whatsoever about the contest itself. However the video does explain that the winner will get to appear in a Federated music video and will also get some stuff including a pair of Federation approved Stunna Shades from StunnaShadez.net.
Unfortunately the lyrics to College Girl make it clear that this contest does not promote education:
She's a college girl.
She's nasty.
Best of luck, ladies.
Rick Rock's 18 Dummy Energy Drink
I don't know the full back story on 18 Dummy Energy Drink or the order of events but basically Rick Rock, a major producer who works with The Federation, has an energy drink produced in partnership with Xyience called 18 Dummy that leverages the slang term 18 Dummy and the Federation single 18 Dummy.
Early reviews are mixed.
MySpace Pages:
The Federation
18 Dummy Energy Drink
Respond to Sound II Trailer
Respond to Sound II debuted this weekend in Hollywood followed by screenings in New York at the VIBE Urbanworld Film Festival:
The documentary features commentary from various voices in the Hip Hop community such as the legendary KRS-ONE, The Black Eyed Peas, The Pharcyde and many others. Audiences will have the chance view rarely seen footage from dance legends such as Sammy Davis Jr., The Nicholas Brothers, Sandman Sims and James Brown.
I'm pretty up on a lot of those older dancers and can only assume they discussed Peg Leg Bates in Part I since I didn't see any clips of him in this trailer. If not, I suggest checking for Peg Leg at your next opportunity.
Hey, it would be cool to see a video juxtaposing footage of Peg Leg Bates with footage of CRUTCH.
Official Site:
Respond to Sound II
Tweetie - Star of Dances From Tha Hood
Saturday saw the premier of Tweetie's Dances From Tha Hood and I'm really sorry I missed it though the clips on the site give me a pretty good idea of what's up. Tweetie is a hip hop dancer and choreographer who recently appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show. Dances From Tha Hood capitalizes on the current upsurge of simple dances to simple hip hop songs and attempts to bridge to the Web with viewer created videos and related offerings.
From the press release:
On the first episode, the show will feature dances that include the "Aunt Jackie," the "Lip Gloss," and the "Toe Wop."...Throughout the season TWEETIE also visits with some of the biggest names in hip-hop and R&B who, in turn, break down the dance elements of their hit videos. In this episode, Tweet Boogie chills with rising rap star Lil' Mama, who's taking over the charts this summer with both her hits "Lip Gloss" and Avril's "Girlfriend Remix."...
Also prominently highlighted throughout "Dances From Tha Hood" is a call to action from TWEETIE asking viewers at home to submit (either by upload or wireless device) videos of themselves doing the latest dances to the show's sister site, www.dancesfromthahood.mtv.com, in addition to uploading their own dance clips, kids can rate, comment and rank each other's videos. The highest ranked dance clips on the site are then featured in the aforementioned "Getting It In" show segment. The site will also feature the latest "DFTH" mobile episode and include exclusive messages from TWEETIE to her online dance community that will update periodically.
This is a smartly conceived and well-timed show that's "Executive produced by Sway Calloway, Sean Lee, Dave Sirulnick and Ocean MacAdams" with Smoov as the "party-roving musical director".
Wynton Marsalis iPod Commercial
I think this is the iPod commercial in which Tweetie appears.
Here's some background, also from the release:
Tweetie was born Lenaya Straker in the Bronx, NY...She got accepted into Fiorella LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts. While there she majored in ballet, modern, jazz, and was able to showcase hip-hop dance in various local talent shows in the area as part of All Stars Talent Show Network...Her dedication and determination enabled her to graduate school and later work with the likes of Jay Z, Destiny’s Child, N’Sync, Mya and Angie Martinez...
Tweetie can also be seen as a featured dancer in the Stride Gum Campaign and stars as the spokesperson for "Dances from Tha Hood Mobile Phone Series", available on Sprint, Verizon, Cingular, Amp’d and Helio phones. She is also appearing in the NIKE Women spring/summer collection and in the new IPOD commercial featuring Wynton Marsalis.
Tweetie teaches in New York at The Ailey Extension and the Peridance Center. She's also taught at the Illadelph Legends Festival and Jacob's Pillow so she's the real deal on multiple levels. That also means she's accessible to serious dancers and dance students in a way that musical artists at her level would not be.
Official Site:
Dances From Tha Hood
I really don't know anything about this commercial other than it's Asian and that it's an amazing performance for e-something.
[Warning: Process oriented post ahead.]
Wilson Morales's simple but highly effective email reminded me that I've intended to take a closer look at Step Up's MySpace campaign but never got to it. In fact, I'd link to the Step Up MySpace page right now if the stupid Film section allowed you to search by title. I don't have time for toy search engines!
It took me no more than 10 seconds [literally] to find the promo trailer for Step Up on YouTube and it even had the MySpace campaign address at the end but I've forgotten it already.
Just kidding! Wow, what a great MySpace page! It's so sad that the movie's not even out and it was already that hard to find on a site that I hear charges quite a bit for the privilege of being unfindable once your ads stop running (which is how I found out about it in the first place).
The MySpace promo seems to have attracted a lot of entries that they've edited into a pretty cool video. I know some folks get all riled up when a "user generated content" approach doesn't simply hand over all power to the people and, yeah, I have revolutionary fantasies too but I wouldn't have watched a bunch of videos by all these dancers. I did watch the edited video and found it quite enjoyable.
Apparently they've chosen their dance contest winners and the next step is for them to appear in a video with Ciara. To be quite frank, the only problem I see here is MySpace's wack ass search engine. Whoever put this campaign together is smart, smart and very smart.
As they used to say back in '99, they get it!
Looks like a bunch of folks have also posted their audition videos on YouTube. And that's what you want to support if you want the fans to take control, i.e. don't bust them later for copyright violations.
As one contestant states:
had to be downloaded sumewhere..myspace was not workin...good luck everybody who made demos for step up
That's especially unfortunate as dance seems to be making its presence felt more strongly these days in marketing all sorts of products. Actually, it would be interesting to track all that more closely since, technically speaking, dance is one of my areas of true expertise.
As usual, I should have just searched on Google for the Step Up MySpace campaign. And I didn't even need to use their Advanced Search capabilities to find it.
[PS - I inserted the process oriented warning because I'm finding that some of my readers don't quite get what I'm doing when I do that. And I want to reach everybody I can right where they're at!]
I'm glad to see both Jennifer Lopez and Sean Diddy with reality dance shows in the works. Since reality tv has become such an entrenched genre, I think dance can be a great source of drama, juxtaposing dance skills with offstage theatrics.
Amazing hip hop subway theater: Subway Series.
Three of the dancers from the Krump Kings have been chosen to perform with Three 6 Mafia at the Academy Awards, though it's unclear how big a role they will play and who else will be performing during the song, It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp. Nevertheless, this is a great honor and opportunity for Tight Eyez, Young and General, as well as for whoever else appears. The more the merrier, I say.
In addition to putting out their own dvds, the Krump Kings appeared in David LaChapelle's documentary Rize.
Three 6 Mafia is planning a performance of It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp that will be "FCC friendly", according to the group's lawyer. Cowriter DJ Paul said, "We took out all the cuss words and made it squeaky clean." I haven't had a chance to go back and check the radio version, but it sounds like they're going ABC clean rather than FCC clean since, instead of blanking out curse word, they're actually rewriting lyrics:
For instance, Beauregard [DJ Paul] said they substituted "It's messed up where I live but that's just how it is," for the lyrics: "It's f---ed up where I live but that's just how it is."
I think they mean he substituted "messed up" for "f*cked up", but you get the idea.
Update: Three 6 Mafia's Juicy J recently discussed the story of how It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp came about with Wilson Morales and, regarding cleaning up the song, Juicy J states:
When you're on the national spotlight like the Oscars, you gotta . . . come correct and look good for Mama, Memphis, and the hip hop community.
Right on!
Official site: Krump Kings
So You Think You Can Dance, a reality tv dance competition on Fox, premiered this week and the first episodes focus on the auditions that involved almost 2000 dancers. The show, created by the producers of American Idol and Dick Clark Productions, chronicles a dance competition in which each dancer must learn a variety of dance styles, including hip hop and Latin dance. The lucky winner "gets $100,000 and a New York apartment for a year."
According to one account, there may even be some krumping and/or clown dancing, the new hip hop dance style from LA shown in the documentary Rize, no doubt intended to push some performers over the edge.
The top 20 weekend box office takes for movies in the U.S. includes The Longest Yard at no. 9 with $4 mil, Crash at no. 14 with almost a million and Rize at no. 16 with a little over $645 thousand. I think Rize is looking pretty good for a dance doc. Um, maybe I should go see it. After I see Batman Begins!
By the way, the Rize website has a Battlezone feature where you can choose dance clips featuring Clowns vs. Krumpers and vote on the results. If nothing else, you can check out some quick dance clips.
Capezio is sponsoring ProDance Convention 2005, an event that focuses on the dance teams associated with professional sports organizations. Though not a hip hop event per se, rap music has become an important element of such teams' performances. In fact, hip hop is increasingly a part of such competitions as the Universal Dance Association's National Dance Team Championship.
Dance teams draw much of their inspiration for new approaches from club dance and, if Davey D is right about Clowning (aka krumping) and Hyphy's potential to further raise the profile of California hip hop, then dance teams may be getting ready for a radical turn in the near future.
Mohammed Bilal, most visible in a season of MTV's The Real World, and underground rapper Josh Goldstein (no stage name given) are performing a work entitled The Color Orange. The performance combines spoken word, hip hop and theater techniques to address issues of diversity and to "actively challenge the American notion of Black and White, Jew and Muslim, urban and suburban." The work was based on their joint creation in 1997 of underground hip hop group Orange Flash, a name intended to evoke the flash of creativity.
Although I'd been following the development of Hustle & Flow since late November when it was announced as an entry in the Sundance Film Festival, I had not seen anything about Rize, a documentary focused on hip hop-related clown dancing or "krumping." However, this documentary by director David LaChapelle is another Sundance success story with Lions Gate Films having acquired worldwide distribution rights. LaChappelle chose Lions Gate because they understood his position that Rize is a crossover film rather than a niche product.
MTV did a nice feature on krumping last spring.
In related news, Newsday recently provided more background on Hustle & Flow. By the way, though Ludacris does appear in the film, it was produced by John Singleton, written and directed by Craig Brewer and stars Terrence Howard, so it's not Luda's f*cking movie!
This weekend at Sundance, Hustle & Flow won the dramatic audience award, voted on by Sundance audience members. In addition, Amelia Vincent won best cinematography award for dramatic films for her work on the project.
Lin-Manual Miranda is a 24 year old combining his abilities as a rapper, actor and playwright to create what is described as a "hip-hop salsa musical set in Brooklyn Heights," NY. In The Heights has the financial backing of the producers of Rent.
Miranda, who is currently appearing in an improvisational hip hop show called Freestyle Love Supreme, describes his motivations for writing In The Heights:
"I always loved musical theater, but being Puerto Rican, I could only be a gang member in 'West Side Story' or a gang member in 'The Capeman,'" says Miranda, who wrote the first draft of "Heights" in three weeks during his sophomore year at Wesleyan. "That's not my reality. As a Puerto Rican in New York City, that's not where I was at. I just want to write the kind of play that I would like to be in."
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