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In December of 2003 I flew out to chilly Minneapolis to spend the holidays with my Mom. At the time I was looking to shoot footage of people freestyling for a hip hop trailer that I was working on. My brother, a hip hop enthusiast had heard that Minneapolis had it's own prolific underground hip hop culture. He suggested we might find some good freestyle leads if we went into The Fifth Element, a small hip hop record shop in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. Not expecting much, we found that we had stepped into one of Minneapolis's central hip hop hubs, a business collectively owned by the musicians of Rhymesayers Entertainment, an internationally recognized independent hip hop production company.
The Fifth Element is owned and operated by the musicians who are on the Rhymesayers label so there was no lack of musical talent present the morning that my brother and I stepped into their store. Felippe who was working the counter turned out to be the emcee of a Latino hip hop crew called Los Nativos. However, when we approached him to see if he would freestyle for us he was still on his first cup of coffee and had a full day of work ahead of him. He told us to come back later. Being the persistent woman that I am I returned to the shop closer to 6pm and was welcomed with new enthusiasm for my freestyle venture from Eyedea (Eye-Dee-Ah), a young emcee of a Rhymesayers hip hop crew called Eyedea and Abilities. Eyedea was bursting with energy for his music and was not only ready to put on a show but was ready to give it all of his effort. Lucky for me Eyedea's infectious excitement had encouraged Felippe to step up to the plate as well. That night my camera and I were treated to a fourty-five minute freestyle session conducted by two of Minneapolis' most prolific rappers. My trailer was in the can. Over the next year I became increasingly intrigued by the music of Eyedea and Abilities and the story of Rhymesayers Entertainment. My introduction to Rhymesayers was my introduction to underground hip hop. I found that the philosophical models that have formed underground hip hop are very relevant to those that have formed independent filmmaking, which I think accounts in part for my immediate sense of connnection. It was apparent in all of Eyedea and Abilities' songs that their musical career had been built completely independently in a classic Rhymesayers way, "Sellin' twenty thousand units hand to hand to the true fans" as Eyedea says in the song E&A Day. Free to explore the full spectrum of expression, Eyedea's lyrics and the tone and style of DJ Abilities' music ranges from introspective and existential to flat out cocky and aggressive capturing something about my generation that really drew me in. Eyedea, while still so young, is able to reflect deeply on the struggles brought on by living in a consumer culture, weaving his messages into fictional stories about the lonely, heartbroken, socially outcast members of our society. Abilities brings a tone to each song that compliments the mood, engulfing the listener in their story. At the same time the duo is quick to jump out of that mode and give the listener a taste of pure unfiltered personality both musically and lyrically. The unique chemistry and playfulness that was unmistakably present between Eyedea and Abilities stoked my curiosity about their relationship making me want to dig deeper into their story. My original concept for the documentary was to focus specifically on the work of Eyedea and Abilities. I was fascinated by how they were able to delve into such thought provoking concepts both musically and lyrically at such a young age. Because they were still very young and new to the hip hop scene they had never been highlighted as their own crew in a documentary. For years they had been touring as part of a more well established Rhymesayers crew called Atmosphere and until fairly recently were only being recognized as musicians that were part of that group. There had been information published about Eyedea and Abilities while they were still touring with Atmosphere but never a documentary that was specifically focused on them. The connections between me and them were so plentiful that I felt as though a full circle was being drawn and that if I could just push it one step further there may be a gold mine of inspiration for me and other young, aspiring artists in their story. I was ready to sink my teeth into a big project and it seemed as though the opportunity to do so was staring me in the face. Because I had made contact with the Rhymesayers through the trailer that I had worked on they already had some concept of who I was so I started sending proposals for my documentary to The Fifth Element. After persisting for about six months I was finally able to get on the phone with Eyedea and discuss my ideas with him (no pun intended). A few months later I was on my way back to Minneapolis to shoot the documentary. Through producing the film, I was drawn into a much deeper and more intricate story than just that of Eyedea and Abilities. Having lived and worked around each other for so long most of the key members of Rhymesayers have a history with each other that is so interconnected that it is almost impossible to focus on only one group. Thus, the story that I have ended up with is told collectively through five different members of Rhymesayers. Through their stories we find out how they met, how they grew up together, how they developed and are still developing their music and how together they built Rhymesayers Entertainment. |