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9.8.2000 00:25
Rap's drama obscured by Backstage flash
By VAUGHN WATSON
Journal Pop Music Writer

Hip-hop shouldn't be trivialized as being all about things such as misogyny. That wouldn't account for the rapper Common, who rails against that stuff in his latest album.

And hip-hop is not all about the H-class diamond rings and Sean Jean jeans rappers wear. That wouldn't account for mastermind producer Prince Paul, who in photo shoots rocks the Izod-style shirts he's worn for years.

But hip-hop should be all about the drama.

The genre's brightest thinkers know it: Drama was at the center of Common's recent album Like Water For Chocolate , in which he articulated a young black man's quest to escape from the ghetto. The drama of Prince Paul's album, So How's Your Girl? , a recent art-pop collaboration with Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, was in its quirkiness. It was too experimental for mainstream hip-hop and today's pop radio market.

But too often in Backstage , the documentary of last year's Hard Knock Life rap tour, drama is glossed over for flash.

The tour was novel because its 54 dates featured only rappers (not rappers and R&B singers). And those rappers were the top talent from several labels (not one collective) -- Jay-Z of Roc-A-Fella Records, DMX of Ruff Ryders and Method Man of Def Jam.

As Backstage 's title suggests, director Chris Fiore strives to articulate the central drama of the Hard Knock Life tour: will the diverse lineup of artists -- which also included Redman, Beanie Sigel, Memphis Bleek, DJ Clue, Amil and Ja Rule -- jell as one unit, and will the audience come in peace, or will violence prevail?

Backstage opens with Jay-Z standing on a pool table in the Bronx in 1993, slinging lyrics. It's a neat nod to hip-hop's birth in that borough circa 1979. With its Hard Knock Life concert footage, Backstage is a visceral compilation that far outstrips the rappers' music videos in intensity.

But Fiore uses concert scenes to introduce the next artist to be profiled in a series of interviews, not as the film's axis.

There is drama in the profiles, in Memphis Bleek's revelatory words. "I'm not saying go ahead, do it, be a murderer or killer," Bleek says of his songwriting. "I'm just saying, there are murderers, there are killers."

And Fiore captures a heated moment that is the film's emotional core: Roc-A-Fella chief executive Damon Dash argues that when Def Jam artists are given jackets inscribed with the Def Jam name, Def Jam is overshadowing Roc-A-Fella.

But too often, when the film settles on the profiles, those scenes are one-dimensional, not well-rounded.

In between the concert footage and the profiles, artists show off pinky rings; Method Man and Redman joke about smoking weed; and rappers party hard with groupies. The flash is not gratuitous, but it's rarely revealing: A tough job "is keeping artists on tour from pulling all the girls backstage," says tour security official Bob "Big Bob" Fontenot.

Nothing new there for rock stars.

Several times, rappers tell Backstage 's camera crew to stop filming. Those moments don't propel the storyline; Fiore provides them as a testimony to the difficulty of the camera crew's job.

The crew did its job. It caught tender moments such as DMX giving his remote-control car to a young boy, and racier ones, such as when a groupie performs a sex act on a rapper.

But as for revealing more about the individuality of the stars of this historic all-rap tour, Backstage doesn't go there when it should.

**

Backstage

Appearances by: Jay-Z, DMX, Method Man, Redman, Beanie Sigel, Memphis Bleek, DJ Clue, Amil, Ja Rule.

Producers: Dimension Films, in association with Roc-A-Fella Records and The Island Def Jam Music Group, directed and edited by Chris Fiore. Produced by Damon Dash. Executive producers, Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Cary Granat, Lyor Cohen.

Playing : Providence Place, Showcase Seekonk 1-10 cinemas.

Rated : R, contains nudity, sex, profanity.

Running time: 89 minutes.