Ice-T Talks About ‘The Art Of Rap’ Documentary
Post by Portia Williams, Jan 18, 2012 at 9:47 am
In a recent interview Ice-T was asked a few questions about his transition to the film and television industry. The rapper took the opportunity to talk about his upcoming directorial debut and why he chose to tackle the task of making a documentary about hip hop.
The upcoming documentary titled ‘Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap` is set to debut at the Sundance Film Festival which starts up on January 19th and runs to January 29th. Ice-T revealed back in the summer that he`s managed to secure over 50 rappers to discuss the history of hip hop including Eminem and Kanye West.
The rapper told the Tribune that he took on the project not only because of his extensive access to hip hop`s heavyweights, but also because he felt that an experienced rapper would be better able to represent the genre than a journalist. “I was one of the early rap pioneers. I knew enough artists out there. I knew the ones that I respected and I felt that somebody had to tell this story. I felt it would be better if somebody from Hip Hop, a real rapper, to do it, rather than a journalist or outsider coming in, and I knew I could put a fair slant on it. Everybody was very open, easy-going. That’s what makes the movie so real. Everyone is in front of the camera, but they’re also talking to one of their friends and one of their peers. So I get interviews that I don’t think anyone else could have got,” explained Ice-T to the Salt Lake Tribune.
Ice-T also addressed his six year hiatus from making music and revealed that he had become more interested in acting since releasing `The Seventh Deadly Sin` back in 1999 because he found his new career challenging. “You just take other career paths. After `The Seventh Deadly Sin,` I started to lean toward more acting. [You] put out albums and you think, ‘I’ve done that, I’ve accomplished that. I’ve climbed that mountain.’ Acting was a new challenge to me. To get good, you have to put 100 percent into it, so I’ve just been focusing on acting for the last 12, 15 years,” explained the rapper.
But according to Ice-T hip hop wasn`t just a profession for him when he first got involved in music and his rap career was instrumental in making him realize what`s important in life. “It gave me a place where I could explain some of the issues I was feeling in life, versus acting [them] out [with] resentment or anger. It also gave me a job and an income versus what I was doing previously in the streets. And then when I finally found out that what I was saying had value, it gave me a new look on life, a new respect for things. I knew I had a chance to be something more,” said Ice-T.
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