Sach O: MC Jean Gab’1 ft. Tony Allen - Black
Sach O thinks more emcees should spit over Afrobeat
Want me to write about your new movie? Make it a Franco-African neo-Blacksploitation flick featuring a killer soundtrack, hilarious starring turn by a shit-starting French emcee, tons of explosions and a trippy psychedelic action sequence on the back end. You get all of that and more in Pierre Laffargue’s new film Black, which thoroughly blew me away at its North-American premiere last night in Montreal. A light-hearted heist flick proving that French cinema doesn’t need to include a bunch of old people smoking Gitanes, Black won me over the minute Fela Kuti’s Zombie played as the “crew” landed in Dakar. Former stick-up kid MC Jean Gab’1 delivers the performance of a lifetime as um…a small time stick-up kid attempting a big score in the motherland. It’s not a big stretch but the movie wears its wink-wink charm on its sleeve, landing somewhere between a budget Oceans film and Shaft in Africa. If you see it at a local festival, give it a shot, it’s two hours well spent.
Also of note, the film’s title track features Gab’1 rapping over none other than the legendary Tony Allen’s drums and production. The verses land closer to Isaac Hayes style monologues than proper rhymes, but it’s hard to get mad over a rhythm track this blazing. Why hasn’t ?uestlove forced the Roots to record an album’s worth of Afrobeat yet?
MC Jean Gab’1 ft Tony Allen - Black
Stumble It!
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:00 am
I’ve been following Black for a few months now ever since the trailer popped up, glad it’s getting a positive reception here and elsewhere too. Hopefully it’ll show up around NY sometime soon. I wonder how it will stack up to Black Dynamite, I know they’re different in tone and purpose but I still feel like both sit comfortably under the same ‘blaxploitation homage’ umbrella.
July 29th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
You should check out CYNE’s Pretty Dark Things from last year. A few hot Afrobeat joints on there.