BIGGIE & TUPAC

I'm the first to admit that Gansta Rap isn't my forte. I remember hearing about the murders of rap stars Tupac Shakur in September 1996 and The Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls) in March 1997. With the little information I had from the press about the East Coast/West Coast rap rivalry, it seemed like such a ridiculous waste of life all for a bunch of macho posturing.

So now British documentarian Nick Broomfield (Kurt & Courtney, Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam) takes his ego along with his nervous cameraman to get to the bottom of these high profile murders. The resulting documentary Biggie & Tupac is surprisingly interesting, picking apart the popular theories that both murders were masterminded by the rappers respective record labels (including the infamous "Suge" Knight and his Death Row Records).

Suge Knight doesn't come across as an angel at all (Broomfield finally gets an interview with him "for the children," in the penitentary where Knight was serving 9 years time). But the new, covered-up theories that the FBI and/or the Los Angeles Police Department played a big part were certainly news to me. There are enough facts and eyewitness interviews that you just have to wonder why these cases remain "unsolved."

Nick Broomfield is an odd-duck of a documentarian. He reminded me more than a little of that other British "journalist" Martin Bashir, who recently cornered and exploited poor Michael Jackson in a tell-all TV special. Broomfield pushes his way in to people's offices, looking like a journalist on the go, but the truth is, he often seems ill-prepared with cutting questions, and wastes his opportunities. In a DVD extra, he talks about some initial hesitancy of himself, a white man, going deep into the world of the straight-outta-Compton gansta black man. There were a few moments in the film, like where he has to replace his cameraman, who was too nervous to take part in a particular meeting, that I found myself secretly hoping that pompous Broomfield would get his ass kicked on camera by the people he was trying to corner on camera.

But other than Broomfield's unnecessarily big ego, and the fact that the film suffers from not being allowed to use Tupac's music (his mother didn't allow licensing rights), Biggie & Tupac proves to be an interesting rental. Even if you are not a fan of the artists or the music, Biggie & Tupac is a fascinating peek into the world of Gangsta Rap, and the mastermind powerhouses that are puppeteers for the whole industry.