Hustle and Flow (2 out of 5 stars)

Mini review: (2 out of 5 stars)

Hustle and Flow is an insult to the hip-hop community at large. Playing off every hip-hop stereotype and cliché, Hustle and Flow manages to be entertaining, but little more. Terrance Howard plays DJay, the pimp who dreams of being a rapper. In a typical midlife crisis, DJay realizes that dealing marijuana and selling flesh isn’t what he’s cut out for. Instead, DJay wants in to the hip-hop game.

Unfortunately, the whole production is much more of an MTV made-for-television production than the well-researched, socially driven film it could have been. The characters are flat and predictable, and seldom deviate from their clichéd typecasting. Craig Brewer’s direction was plain and uninspired, even during the “jam” sequences that drive the movie. For a movie that attempts to “bring the black experience” to the mainstream public, Hustle and Flow does little more than reify negative stereotypes, downplay the hardships, ignore racism, and create a mediocre soundtrack. If you’re interested in hip-hop, pick up Kanye West’s Late Registration, and skip this movie.

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More:

Here’s another thought about Hustle and Flow: take a feminist reading of the film, and … eesh.

Normally I’m willing to look the other way, in acknowledgement of the fact that, historically, the Women’s movement and the Civil Rights movement (is there a better work? the Black Movement?) have always been somewhat combative– but here’s the thing: Hustle and Flow does nothing, in my opinion, towards the end of African-American equality. It trivializes, ignores or sensationalizes the problems faced by impoverished, neglected minority groups, while at the same time deligitimizing the hip-hop movement as a whole. The driving force behind hip-hop has never been the beat. It’s always been the injustice and the pain and the frustration, needing an outlet, needing a postive way to come to the surface. That’s what hip-hop is about. It’s about the Dead Prez and Ludacris and Kanye West, not Nelly and Snoop Dogg. Hustle and Flow takes that all away.Listen to Late Registration (Crack raised the murder rate in DC and Maryland / We invested in that it’s like we got Merril-Lynch / And we been hangin from the same tree ever since / Sometimes I feel the music is the only medicine), and then to … “You know it’s hard out here for a pimp / When he tryin to get this money for the rent / For the Cadillacs and gas money spent / Because a whole lot of bitches talkin shit” It doesn’t stack up. I think if you listen to Bigger than Hip-Hop by the Dead Prez (download here user: music pass: music), you’ll find that Hustle and Flow is just the short of “fake hip-hop” that they’re indicting. Just a game of pimps and hoes? All about the bling bling? (heh, I’m way to white to even TYPE that, lol).

It’s still bigger than hip hop hip hop hip hop hip
It’s bigger than hip hop hip hop hip hop hip hop

[verse 1]
Uhh, uhh, uhh
One thing ’bout music when it’s real they get scared
Got us slavin for the welfare
Aint no food, clothes, or healthcare
I’m down for guerilla warfare
All my niggas put your guns in the air if you really don’t care
Skunk in the air, make a nigga wanna buck in the air
For my brother locked up in the jump for a year
Shit is real out here don’t believe these videos
This fake ass industry gotta pay to get a song on the radio
Really though, dp’z gon’ let you know
It’s just a game of pimps and hoes
And it’s all ’bout who you know
Not who we are, or how we grow
I rap ’bout what I know, what I go through
What I been through, not just for no dough
Even though the rent due, what I’m into ain’t for no dough
Or just no fame, everything must change, nothin remains the same
Sick of the same ol’ thang, it’s bigger than bling bling

Hook:
If i, feel it I feel it, if I don’t, I don’t
If it ain’t really real then I probably won’t
Rollin with my soldiers, live soldiers, ready to ride
For this real hip hop y’all I’m ready to die
Uhh, hip what hop what hip what hop what hip what hop what hip what
Hop c’mon, c’mon, my soldiers, live soldiers, ready to ride
For this real hip hop y’all I’m ready to die

[verse 2]
Hip hop means sayin what I want never bite my tongue
Hip hop means teaching the young
If you feelin what I’m feelin then you hearin what I’m sayin
Cause these fake fake records just keep on playin
What you sayin huh dp bringin the funk
Let the bassline rattle your trunk, uhhh!
Punk pig wit a badge wanna handcuff me cuz my pants that’s tend to sag
Hip hop means throw up your rag, soldier flag
Whether ridin on the bus or you stole a jag
M-1 mean freedom, burn the cash
Revolutionary love til the day we pass
Will they play it on the radio
Maybe not, maybe so we gon keep it pumpin though
Everybody know we headed for the whoa, fo sho

[verse 3]
Ay dogg that label is that slave ship
Owners got them whips and rappers is slaves
If you really wanna eat you gotta hear the same thing
With the football, b-ball, or if you slangin that dope
Aint never seen no hope, brainwash video shows be foolin my folk
What the hell a brother gon do though, huh
When the rent due, when the lights and the gas gonna get cut off
Drop them raps or cock them gats
Aint never had shit ever since we came to this bitch
Why I gotta feel pain to get rich
’stead of stackin chips, finna pack them clips

I dunno. I like to think that there’s a power to hip-hop, but, like literature, only if its treated with respect and understanding. It’s a medium for expression. And I wasn’t impressed by anything remotely powerful in Hustle and Flow.