I want these for Christmas

Douglas Martin aka Fresh Cherries From Yakima aka Father Shadowboxer did a very cool piece on Bring Me the Head of Zilla Rocca, which now almost three months old (they sure do grow up fast!).  The thing I find most entertaining is how many pop culture references Douglas manages to tag from the lyrics–I guess all of those years I spent watching Encore, TNT, and Sunset Park* on VHS have finally paid off! 

Go check it out and by the end of this week, you’ll have a new track from Bring Me the REMIX of Zilla Rocca up at 33jones.com.  No dookie.

*Sunset Park is a totally underrated hip hop and basketball movie–I think I taped it off Showtime and watched it on VHS around 15 times.  You had Terrance Howard playing a young Dennis Rodman/Reggie Evans who planned on killing his teacher with a machete.  You had comedian Talent from Def Comedy Jam playing Butter, the leading scorer/ladies man who looked just like Play of Kid N’ Play.  Fredro Starr didn’t suck so bad at rapping/acting yet and was only 3 years removed from Onyx’s All We Got Iz Us album (“Last Dayz” = the grimiest beat to freestyle over ever), though he is the same height at Rhea Pearlman.  The basketball team had a three point specialist named Drano (awesome!) and either zero or 1 white guy, so their priorities were straight.  The basketball scenes were solid–not amazing but not as corny as Teen Wolf.  The spark plug off the bench was a goofy guard named Busy B who wore geeky Malcom X glasses, played defense like a zombie on coke, and later got shot for his sheepskin coat (sounds like a rhyme from a Ghostface song).

The soundtrack featured “Motherless Child” by Ghost and Raekwon (“The kid loved basketball/had a favorite song/I Miss You/written by Aaron Hall”) as well as “High Till I Die” by 2pac, one of the few gems from ‘Pac’s catalogue that wasn’t remixed to death by Suge Knight and/or MySpace producers.  And what mid 90s hip hop soundtrack would be complete without Aaliyah, Junior Mafia, Tha Dogg Pound, Mobb Deep, Adina Howard, and the 69 Boyz? 

Director Steve Gomer’s next feature film after this movie about underprivledged ballers from NYC was…Barney’s Great Adventure.  Anthony C. Hall played “Andre”, a lovable underachieving small forward who need a 50 year old white lady to help reach his basketball potential; he also played “Tony” from Blue Chips, a lovable underachieving small forward who was caught point shaving.  Finally, here’s my favorite thing about Sunset Park: the tagline is “You Gotta Represent”

“SUNSET PARK, WHAT TIME IS IT?  IT’S TIME TO GET LIVE, IT”S TIME TO REPRESENT!!!!”