source: Sample This

If you looking for a hip hop documentary, just skip the first 45 minutes and the last 22 minutes of it. You get 15 minutes of good hip hop interviews, pictures, songs, etc. The rest is just a bunch of filler telling the stories of uninteresting people (IMO).

If you're going to do a documentary about music please have a musician do the editing. Hearing the music and watching the musicians out of sync is an insult to the musicians and their work.

"Sample This" is yet another look at hip-hop in documentary form. There's "Hip-Hop Evolution" which is a multi-part series on the evolution of hip-hop. There's "The Show" and "Rhyme and Reason" which featured the biggest artists of the 90's. There's "Scratch" which is about the art of scratching. There's "Fresh Dressed" which is about clothing in pop culture and hip-hop's big influence on it. And there's "Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap" which is an Ice-T creation about the art of rapping and MC'ing. Not to mention the other documentaries out there about various artists such as Tupac, Notorious B. I. G., Tribe Called Quest, and others. "Sample This" goes way back to give a detailed history of the song "Apache" by The Incredible Bongo Band. "Apache" is so important because it is probably one of the most sampled songs in all of hip-hop. If you've heard a rap song at all from the 80's or 90's, then you've heard the beat from "Apache." "Sample This" probably goes deeper than anyone wanted to about the origin of the oft-sampled "Apache." It is some fascinating stuff and some not so fascinating stuff that is both comedy and tragedy. There are times in the documentary when you may wonder if you're watching a documentary on hip-hop it strays so far from the topic. I think the point of it was that everything has an origin and an influence that isn't readily visible so here's an important origin story.

In 1973 I was 11 years old and loved the music of The Incredible Bongo Band, or at least the 2 or 3 songs that played on the radio. One of them was a great cover of the 1960 song Apache (although at the time I thought it was an original - hey, I was kid!) This documentary outlines the origins of this band. Basically, if somebody wrote a fictional account of this it would sound a bit too "interesting" and made up, perhaps part of a Tarantino movie. The tunes had a lot of percussion (and parts with ONLY percussion), which ultimately lent themselves to being sampled and used in various tunes years later. Their version of Apache in particular ultimately became the most lifted piece of music in the hip hop genre, at first using record players and then actual digital samplers. I've also since heard music which very much recreates the sound and feel of TIBB's Apache from new raw elements rather than from the original recording. As somebody who dug this stuff in the mid 70s, I kinda missed out on its resurgence into popular music later (mostly in hip hop and breakdancing, which I don't know too much about). Several years ago I decided to play Apache in one of my Ecstatic Dance DJ sets, thinking "hey, I guess only us old folks with remember this tune, but it sure is great to dance to", and then so many (younger) people seemed to recognize this tune and love it, although many had only previously heard the snippets and not the entire thing. Little did I know that it had infused into pop culture so much!

This follows in the footsteps of other movies about studio musicians Such as The Wrecking Crew, Standing in the Shadows of Motown etc. Oh you thought you were going to see a movie about Hip Hop? This movie is about the Incredible Bongo Band song 'Apache'. But you can't really blow a feature length movie on a 3 minute song with no real lyrics. So they go deep into the producer and studio musicians who made the song. Very Deep. Some would say too deep. They do get around to the Hip Hop side of thingseventually, but that is still only a small part of the movie. I enjoyed finding out trivia about various band members and seeing them perform. However this is where the movie loses me. Whomever edited the audio and performance footage together seems to have some human defect where they cannot perceive a down beat? The music and the footage of the musicians is completely out of sync. As if the footage of the musicians is merely B roll to fill up space until an important person appears on screen and starts talking. This would be a minor glitch for other types of films. But the specific genre this film is trading in is the 'respect due to unrecognized musicians'. It hits all the notes, plays all the shopworn tropes of the niche. If a film is about respecting musicians, do them the respect of lining up the footage so what you see is what you hear. The effect was a bit unsettling at first, but only got worse as the movie progressed. The movie also suffers from typical documentary pacing issues. The first third flows pretty well, as is always the case with films that have a longer post production. Then the last third stops and starts, as if they keep finding tapes they thought they lost. Overall this is best if watched non-critically, if there really is nothing better to do.

I'll have to preface this review by saying that when I chose to watch this documentary, I thought it would focus more on early hip hop and less on The Incredible Bongo Band. This is definitely a movie about the people behind and the making to the The Incredible Bongo Band album with only about 25-35% of the film spent interviewing early hip hop pioneers. If you know this before viewing, you may have a better experience than I did. Despite not being entirely what I expected, there was still some very interesting material in the film. I found the interviews with Grandmaster Caz and Questlove to be the best part of the film, and I enjoyed seeing the different backgrounds of the studio musicians involved in the making of the album. Frankly I feel like less time should have been spent talking about the producer of the album Michael Viner. His story is terribly uninteresting and apart from knowing which musicians to hire, the film seems to show that he had little impact on the record. He comes across as a sleazy industry guy who blatantly lied to market his record and who's only redeeming quality is that he inexplicably knows a lot of famous people (including Gene Simmons who for some reason was chosen to narrate the film). I feel spending so much time talking about him was a mistake and the focus should have been more on the musicians. There's also an incredibly confusing scene near the end of movie where some of the musicians reunite and play together in the studio. It's one thing to reminisce about the recording sessions of old, but that doesn't mean I want to see a bunch of old guys hang out in the studio. However, I think this would have still gotten a pass from me if they had played Apache or even Bongo Rock for old times sake. However, they choose to spend several minutes showing these guys playing their version of the Hawaii Five-O theme song. Why? This song has no relevance to anything that has been talked about in the movie. As far I can tell, it wasn't on either of the IBB albums. It was incredibly confusing and unnecessary. They even have some producer made a remixed version of their TV theme homage. They could have cut this section and lost absolutely nothing. There was similar too long scene with Grand Wizzard Theodore playing for some guys break dancing but at least that one kind of makes sense because he's actually playing Apache and not Hawaii Five-O! Despite my complaints, the interviews in the film are for the most part pretty interesting and offer insights into how records were made in the late 60's and early 70's as well as some peeks into early hip hop. If you're more interested in the hip hop side of the movie, I think the documentary series Hip Hop Evolution would be a better choice. If I remember correctly, it interviews all the hip hop pioneers who appear in this film and goes into much greater depth. Otherwise this film certainly tells a unique story about forgotten record that found new life in another genre. I just feel it focuses on some of the least interesting parts of that story.

I saw the premiere of this documentary film at the British Film Institute in London in June, followed by a Q&A with the director, Dan Forrer, who elicited gasps from the audience when he mentioned in passing that he spent 4 years researching and creating this film -- a level of dedication that's plainly evident throughout. I can honestly say that this is the most fascinating, surprising and compelling documentary that I have ever seen. Who would have guessed that the iconic piece of music (Apache) that represents the birth of hip-hop culture and rap, and the musicians who make it all happen, would be tied to so many key historical events from the assassination of Robert Kennedy to the Charles Manson murders? As a political analyst and pop culture junkie, this film treated me to a unique perspective on some of the history that shaped the American landscape, with the added bonus of learning about the birth and evolution of hip-hop along the way. If you're a celebrity watcher, this film has some great little gems that have never before come to light. And if you're a die-hard hip-hop fan, you'll love this for the interviews and insight from some of the biggest names in the business. It's about 1.5 hours and doesn't drag at all. Great editing and the stellar soundtrack that you'd expect from a film about Apache.

Trailer—Sample This

Sample This