Speaker: 00:00:00

We're talking about the 1986 documentary entitled Big Fun in the Big Town.

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Wow.

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What a treasure trove and time capsule of early hip hop in New York City hosted by Marcel

Vanthilt who was a Belgian reporter.

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I cannot believe we just cracked open this one.

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On this episode of Hip Hop Movie Club, we open a time capsule and see some predictions

about the evolution of hip hop that came true, some lesser acknowledged pioneers of rap

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get respect, and a special guest none of us saw coming.

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All thanks to a Dutch filmmaker.

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I'm DynoWright, filmmaker, designer, longtime hip hop fan.

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I'm JB, 80s and 90s nostalgia junkie, longtime hip hop fan.

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I'm Boogie, a DJ, longtime hip hop fan.

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Yeah, this is a Dutch documentary.

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So guys, we finally did a foreign film.

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So it aired on Dutch television in 1986 and it disappeared because there was no repeat

showings of it, but it wound up on YouTube in the 2010s and a American distribution

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company noticed it and re-released it.

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And I watched video that the filmmaker Bram van Splunteren put out for the 50th

anniversary of hip hop about this film and that it was because hip hop was getting popular

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in Holland.

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And so the TV station or network that commissioned this film wanted to

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get to the source.

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And so they sent this guy, Bram there and he took Marcel, the host with him and wow, what

a time capsule.

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Autumn of ‘86.

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So these guys are really really young So like we're seeing pioneers

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that were early in the game and they're still young, teenagers and early twenties, hanging out with young Mr.

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Magic, you see Marley Marl, MC Shan, Grandmaster Flash.

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Young guys, man.

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He just kind of bounced around.

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He went, to the Bronx, hung out in Harlem, he hung out in Queens,

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It was, it was almost prophetic.

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Like they had the foresight to do this.

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And the common theme was among these guys, you see Doug E fresh mentioned it.

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We're going through the same things that rock and roll was going through and like,

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We want to be up here.

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One day we're going to be up here.

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the other guy that compared rap to rock and roll was Schoolly D.

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He came on at the end.

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Schoolly D, Philly's own.

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He said, I hope rap doesn't go the way of rock, where they take away some of that raw and

make it all pretty.

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I say, welp.

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That was a fascinating insight, yep.

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Welp!

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Took some time, but it's there now.

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It's funny, I was trying to think of like what they're referencing because 86, all the hair bands

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I think it was glam rock.

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Yeah, glam rock, right, And because Doug E Fresh mentioned the same thing.

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And so does Schoolly D, the same thing is like, it should still be raw.

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And now it's gone the way of glam rock pretty much.

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They had the big hair and the makeup and the tights.

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I just feel in general there's an evolution that these things go.

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Rock and roll did it and they branched out to a million different kinds of permutations of

rock and roll and rap is probably going that way.

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Hip Hop music is gonna go that way and it has since, in a lot of ways.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I mean, we talked about when we did the Juice Wrld documentary, like emo rap, and

you see like Lil Nas X with a different type of demographic.

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And yeah, there's all types of rap and rap adjacent styles for all walks of life and for

all styles.

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So yeah, it is there.

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You can’t have a hip hop documentary

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without the kings from Queens.

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Run DMC was on the rise.

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the timing was such that they had just released “Walk This Way”

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think like right around the same day or so that they filmed this.

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So that was about to take off.

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LL comes out with his trademark red Kangol hat.

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It's very prescient, talking about women rappers because the host asks.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I really loved his response.

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Yeah, he's like, Yeah, listen, we're just trying to break through ourselves and we're

gonna get through the they'll get there.

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They'll get there one day, right now they're here, but they're gonna be there.

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And he was right.

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Yep, they're out there.

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It's inevitable.

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They're gonna rise.

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I do appreciate too that this documentary actually included one of the members of The Last

Poets, Suliaman El Hadi.

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I mean, for people who know The Last Poets are, they were like, before there was like

really any hip hop, there was The Last Poets.

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know, they're basically like spoken word, but they were like almost community activists as

well and educators.

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And he was...

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He wasn't too happy with the way the rap was going.

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He said, yeah, they have nursery rhyme raps and they don't talk about much any substance.

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They don't talk about the real stuff.

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He said they need to address more issues with their energy.

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But, you know, on the flip side, LL, juxtaposed to have him he's like, yeah, I'm just

trying to take the pressure off of the listeners.

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I don't want to talk about the heavy stuff.

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I want them to come out and have a good time.

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I don't want have them come out and talk about the sad, depressed stuff that's going on.

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I want them to enjoy themselves.

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It's kind of funny, it's like how they edited that.

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it's like almost like him responding to Suliaman.

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No, that was a choice. Yeah.

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Yeah.

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The Last Poets, I'm glad they put this in here.

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I agree with you because again, a lot of hip hop documentaries don't mention folks like

Schoolly D or the Last Poets. Because we get to see Grand Master Flash and Run DMC and LL and

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Biz Markie and Roxanne and those types.

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But you dig a little bit deeper and you get to Schoolly D and you get to The Last Poets

and you get to those people that really paved the way for a lot of what we see now.

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The scene that stole the whole documentary for me, you probably saw.

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LL Cool J's grandmother?

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come on.

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That was insane.

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It was insane to have that footage on film that I've never seen where, you know, he knocks

on LL Cool J's front door.

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And his grandmother answers.

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And he's like, I'm here to see LL Cool J. You must be the grandmother.

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She's like, yes, I am.

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You're so sweet.

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And she said come on in.

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Oh my God.

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And then he'll be here in just a moment.

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I'm like, I was like, she is so charming.

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All so let's go around and rate this documentary, Big Fun in the Big Town.

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Boogie, would you bring this funky flick back or leave it in the vault?

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Bring this funky Flick back, no hesitation.

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Mm-hmm.

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Dyno Wright, bring this funky flick back or leave it in the vault.

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Absolutely bring this funky flick back.

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Yes, I will make it unanimous.

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Bring this funky flick back.

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This was a great one.

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Thank you for tuning in to the Hip Hop Movie Club Show.

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The show for serious hip hop fans who want to deepen their cultural knowledge.

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I'm Dyno Wright, filmmaker, designer, longtime hip hop fan, and I recommend, Origineel

Amsterdams by Osdorp Posse.

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But if you want a English song from them, Toys in the Attic.

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I'm JB, 80s and 90s nostalgia junkie, long time hip hop fan.

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And I admittedly have always been a fan of LL Cool J's tender love raps, especially I Need

Love.

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Love that one.

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I used to know that, I used to have the whole thing memorized.

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Yeah.

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man, the ladies definitely love that song.

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And I'm Boogie, a DJ, longtime hip hop fan.

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And this documentary actually reminded me of a time when I was in high school when some

French rap artists came to our high school to sit down and talk to us.

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Cause they were curious about hip hop and they wanted to learn a little bit more from us.

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It was a pretty cool experience.

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You could have been in a documentary.

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Yeah, that's And remember, don't hate, appreciate.

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Nice.

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I appreciate you.

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Yeah, we appreciate listeners and viewers.

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Yes, absolutely.

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We appreciate you all.