Doug E. Fresh Movies

Chris Rolle was born into poverty in the Bahamas and found himself forced to fend for himself as a child when he was abandoned by his mother. Rolle came to America in his teens but soon found himself homeless on the mean streets of Brooklyn, NY. Rolle had a natural talent as a rapper, and had the good fortune of meeting Scott K. Rosenberg, who was the founder of Art Start, an organization that brings arts education to New York City's underprivileged. Encouraged by his contacts at Art Start, Rolle began developing a potent reputation as rapper Kharma Kazi, and soon he came to realize he wanted to give back to the community that helped lift him out of poverty. With the help of Art Start, Rolle helped found The Hip Hop Project, a workshop for aspiring hip-hop artists. Instead of simply teaching aspiring rappers about rhyming techniques or microphone handling, Rolle and his crew urged them to use rap as a way to speak out about the issues they face in their daily lives rather than rhyming about violence, sex, bling, and the gangsta lifestyle. In time, hip-hop powerhouse Russell Simmons partnered up with movie star Bruce Willis to donate a recording studio to the group, thus enabling the musicians to record and release their own record, HHP Vol. 1: Are You Feelin' Me?, issued in May 2007. The Hip Hop Project is a documentary about Rolle and The Hip Hop Project crew that offers a behind-the-scenes look at their work and their impact on a group of young people eager to hone their musical skills. The film received its world premiere at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The Beastie Boys let their fans do the shooting as they take the stage of Madison Square Garden for the final date of their "Challah at Your Boy" tour in a concert video that truly puts the viewer right in the middle of all the action. With a mix of fifty DV and Hi-8 cameras distributed to shutter-bug fans and little more instruction than to keep the tapes rolling, director Nathaniel Hornblower and supervising editor Neal Usatin skillfully edit the resulting amateur footage into a kaleidoscopic, rough-edged take on the typically slick, professionally shot concert video. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Hosted by rapper KRS-One, Blaze MC Battle, Round 1 showcases a competition in which up-and-coming MCs challenge each other in verbal competition. These battles helped form the hip-hop community and have produced such famous artists as Eminem. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

An oft-overlooked aspect of hip-hop music gets its due in Breath Control: The History of the Human Beatbox. Beatboxing is the art of producing musical sounds, particularly percussion, without the use of instruments. Filmmaker Joey Garfield traces beatboxing from the early days, when the simple rhythms of Darren "Buff" Robinson helped make The Fat Boys a household name, to the amazing technical skills of such contemporary artists as Rahzel and Scratch of The Roots, and Anthony Rivera, also known as Click tha Supah Latin. As one artist, Chris Jung, explains, beatboxing "stemmed from the need to make music now." It grew out of a necessity to produce music when instruments and turntables were not available. Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie, and others explain what they brought to the art, while Congo-born vocalist Marie Daulne of Zap Mama expounds on both the universality and the ethnic diversity of vocal rhythm-making. Breath Control won the Festival Choice Award at the 2002 New York Underground Film Festival. It was also featured at the 2002 Tribeca Film Festival and the 2002 Urbanworld Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

What do you do if you're a white guy in a white town who happens to love black music? Flip (Danny Hoch) is a middle-class kid from the Iowa corn belt, but he doesn't think of himself as just another guy from farm country. Flip loves hip-hop, and he longs to be respected as a hard-core rapper. But a white guy from Iowa who drops mad rhymes looks weird. While Flip and his buddies Trevor (Mark Webber) and James (Dash Mihok) may have the clothes, the style, and the lingo down pat, to most folks they look like three white boys trying to be black. When Khalid (Eugene Byrd), an African-American from Chicago, transfers into Flip's school, Flip comes to his rescue when other kids give him a hard time, and, while Khalid is as baffled by Flip's affectations as most people, a friendship grows between them, and Khalid grudgingly agrees to take Flip and his crew to Chicago, where they get a look at hip-hop culture in a way they haven't seen before. Director Marc Levin previously explored elements of hip-hop culture in his first dramatic film, Slam; he also made a number of acclaimed documentaries, including Gang War: Bangin' in Little Rock, about middle-class kids who have absorbed the gang lifestyle through popular culture. Whiteboys features appearances by a number of noted hip-hop artists, including Snoop Dogg, Slick Rick, Doug E. Fresh, and Fat Joe. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi