The hour-long indie flick features interviews with M-1 and Stic.man, who offer their take on world politics, urban poverty, black pride, healthy living, and the power of Black women.
VIBE.com recently caught up with, John Threat, the film’s director, who gave us a behind-the-scenes peak at his latest hip hop opus.
VIBE.com: Introduce yourself…
John Threat: Yo, I’m John Threat. I enjoy making music videos, television, and films that are straight crack for the kids.
Whose brainchild was the movie?
John: The movie was actually sort of a genesis between several people, one of the producers, Jeremy Glick; one of the executives at Star, Ellen Mettnick; and also a sort of godfather, Melvin Van Peoples. I got put in the mix as a young director who has a revolutionary spirit and could still make it look hot. Of course you can’t mention the project without mentioning Dead Prez, who were open to it once everybody stated their commitment to make an honest film.
How was it working with the legendary Melvin Van Peoples.
John: Well, Melvin Van Peoples is the godfather of Black cinema, matter fact, just the straight up father. He’s sort of a mentor to me. He even broke barriers in music, he was rapping back in the day before cats had DJ sets. Before anybody did anything, Melvin did everything. So, it’s great learning from him.
right Was there something specific that you learned through him as a director?
John: Oh yeah, sure, so many things. One of the great things is definitely patience. He taught me patience and killing ‘em with kindness
How will we have access to the film if we don’t subscribe to Starz InBlack?
John: The film is going to be shown on all the Starz channels and there will also be a DVD release in a longer format with extended material.
You think there’s enough subject matter to do a follow up?
John: Oh, absolutely. One of the things that I’m excited about is that it needs to be followed up with a frank discussion about the Black Panthers and exactly how pivotal they were. There was an excellent film done on the subject by Melvin and Mario Van Peoples, which you should pick up if you can. It’s a film called Panther that came out in ’95. It’s an excellent film. The fact that The Panthers carried guns was a very small part of who they were. Their real legacy has to do with actually empowering the communities they were in. The gun ownership happened to be a natural right of citizens of the U.S. but because it was African Americans holding guns, the government took it as a huge threat and actively—and this is actually in documents from the F.B.I.—actively sought to destroy and dismantle the Black Panther Party and unfortunately they were very successful. I think that here in 2006, it’d be really important to see a new documentary in a new light with new information that’s come out and also sort of an objective look at it.
How has the film been received so far?
John: The film showed at the Apollo Theater and everybody loved it. I was very pleased. I think that the film is important for a lot of reasons because when you talk about things like revolution and making a change, music plays a huge part in that. Music is like the soundtrack to everything you do whether it’s making love, learning, whether it’s partying, whether it’s war. In the 60’s and 70’s you saw this huge change in this country, both socially and politically, and underneath that was this great music that was like a road map on what to do. When you think about all the sons that challenged war, who challenged ideas and notions about politics and love and race. Now you have songs about nothing, which in turn begets a generation of people that care about nothing. That’s why a group like Dead Prez is so important and other groups like them, who speak out about issues and real things. The fact that they’re squelched by major media is a very telling point. That’s why you won’t see the mass movements that you saw in the 60’s and 70’s that galvanized people to end the Vietnam War, to start the Civil Rights Movement, to change women’s liberation. All of those things happened because everything worked in terms of media supporting it and great music artists. Now we have Dead Prez, so this is an opportunity for them to get that message out clearly and hopefully we’re headed, after this time of nothingness, to a time of change.
Do you think in the present atmosphere there’s enough political upheaval to spark another revolution?
John: I think that the time is brewing. It’s ironicbecause I remember the Reagan years and how he served foreight years, just like Bush is serving, and then it took another four years of Bush senior for people to realizethey wanted a change. I think that’s coming. We’reembroiled in a war that’s making people lose their lives. When the soldiers come back, they realize that the government isn’t always there for them. I think that is definitely a part of making a catalyst work for a huge change. The only thing that’s missing is the fact that inside the media, there are voices that work to squelch that change and those voices are more powerful than ever. The conservative voices either smooth things over, or if they can’t smooth it over then they spin it. If they can’t spin it, then they just block it from being disseminated. The only counter to that is the internet and because media is moving there so rapidly, that’s really the only chance for the democratization of media in terms of distribution and getting new ideas and thoughts out there. That’s where the revolution is really going to take part at, inside of the hearts of people with the help of technology.
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December 10, 2006 at 2:15 pm