|
The New-Age Minstrel: Part 2
Interview by: Melanie J Cornish
 Twenty Four years young, Kareem Edouard, the Miami based film maker who has been promoting his short documentary Bling: Consequences and Repercussions; has a lot to say on the topic of the conflict diamonds. It is not just about innocent lives being taken in the Western African country of Sierra Leone, nor is it about the way the reigns on the diamond industry are held by one in particular diamond digger; the point that he is making with his story is that hip-hop is allowing itself literally to be pimped out to further the continuation of such atrocities depicted in his short documentary. See : The New-Age Minstrel: Part 1
NOBODYSMILING.COM : So what are people supposed to do, what’s the solution?
Kareem Edouard : For me it is education, if we bring to light that De Beers have such a choke hold on the diamond industry. I talked to a writer whose book is coming out soon, he was telling me that in India, ten times a year all the major diamond buyers come and sit down at a table with De Beers and basically De Beers slides them an envelope and you take it and you walk away. You don’t even look in the envelope because you take what you are given and if you even question what you are given you are removed from the center hold, and then you have to go and fetch the diamonds yourself. De Beers runs 70-80% of the diamonds, but the other 20% are trying to get in and make things happen but are unable to do that because of the monopoly De Beers has.
NOBODYSMILING.COM : So de-monopolization of De Beers could be the only something that might encourage change?
 Kareem Edouard : But trying to de-monopolize De Beers is like trying to tell the United States not to be the World Police. It comes down to the Illuminati theory, Cecil Rhodes the founder of De Beers put together all the little pockets of diamond companies and the Rhodes scholarship was founded under his name and there are thousands of other things that happen under the Rhodes family name, they are a part of other families. This goes back to the 1800’s; they need to stop all the shucking. Why hasn’t anyone filed suit against De Beers, the European Union, and the United States, why hasn’t anyone made a move to question why there is a monopoly in diamonds? We saw Microsoft be sued about a web browser, Windows was packaged with internet explorer and it broke anti-trust laws, why can one company be allowed to run a precious rock? I am trying to uncover the answers. Today on your message board I noticed people thought I was blaming the rappers. I am not blaming the rappers. The main reason I am bringing hip-hop into this is because it is the number one marketing approach. We have the ability to change things. When you are making an entire album about ice, about grillz it’s like what are we doing? We are talking about being ‘nigga rich.’ We as Hip-hop need to hold ourselves accountable for some things and if hip-hop changes it then everyone else can ‘change’ it. ‘Bling’ is the terminology used from a hip-hop song and is being used at the forefront to speak about diamonds. So why can’t hip-hop not be at the forefront of the change? If 90% of rappers are black and we are straight descendants of those dying in Africa, why can’t we acknowledge it and make an effort to help people overseas.
NOBODYSMILING.COM : Ok so what about Paris Hilton and Lyndsey Lohan, all the other celebrities that ‘bling?
Kareem Edouard : At the same time, Paris Hilton couldn’t care less about someone in Africa, so we as black folks need to use consciousness in our voice, we need to help our own because its only 500/600 years when we were traveling through the middle passage to come here. So now we have to look back to our home and what our people have come from. For us to cripple De Beers we need to remove a segment of the population and I guarantee you, even though people say hip-hop is just a small portion, if everyone was to walk away from it and not be on some diamond stuff or be on some ruby thing it would make a difference. This will all be covered in the feature length documentary.
NOBODYSMILING.COM : You are planning on turning this into a feature length documentary next year then? Who is funding this?
Kareem Edouard : Yes I am. The short doc I funded myself. There is something in the works for the feature length project; we are talking with some studios and private investors.
NOBODYSMILING.COM : Has there been much backlash from this story?
Kareem Edouard : No not really. Everyone who I have rapped to about it has said ‘it’s about time.’ You know you get a couple of knuckleheads that say things; I had one kid that said ‘Why wouldn’t I wear a diamond that didn’t cost somebody a limb?’ It was on an MTV message board. The point is we are so desensitized. You know we have all this gun-murder talk and when you have a company called Murder Inc, when you hear about someone losing an arm it doesn’t have an effect as all you have to do is turn on the video games and listen to Scarface and you see all this.
NOBODYSMILING.COM : Do you find that in America you aren’t educated on things? It takes people like you to make movies about such pressing issues, but why don’t people in power care?
Kareem Edouard : Definitely. It doesn’t matter because it is Africa. De Beers is a London based company, the Brits have a strong hold, they are running it so we as Americans have no interest in it. I think the better question is what were the Brits doing? We always look to the US to help, but where were the Brits, the country where De Beers is based, what were they doing to help the Africans that were dying? America is the worlds police but the Brits are right up next to them, where were they? From 91-99 what were they doing to help out? Why weren’t heads of De Beers being questioned? When Katrina happened and gas prices went up, the United States government sat down with all the heads of the main gas companies and questioned them. We talk so much about the United States but there are a lot more countries that need to step up as well as America.
NOBODYSMILING.COM : All these questions you hope to answer with the feature?
Kareem Edouard : Yes in the feature it won’t be just limited to hip-hop; we are going to look at it across the board.
NOBODYSMILING.COM : Was this documentary just enough to start people talking and with the interest you created using hip-hop it will then encourage further interest from different walks of life for the feature length?
 Kareem Edouard : That is what I did. I could have really gone and attacked Paris Hilton, but how many people would care? I got Chuck D to come in to help me out with a voice over. It was all calculated. I came into this thing knowing how I was going to pull this off. Talking to people, you, other magazines, you know start the buzz in the right way. I want to raise the level of quality and consciousness in hip-hop documentaries. They are suffering from the whole mixtape revolution. You know everybody and their Moms is putting together a little mixtape/DVD nowadays, you know you have some label who is too cheap to shoot a music video so they decide to give someone in the entourage a camera and he starts going behind the scenes to cover what they are smoking, who they are sexing, what mischief they are getting into and it is dropping the level of visual content to hip-hop. Hip-hop was once visually educating, it was showing you people doing the graffiti, you know there were major corporations like PBS back then bringing hip-hop to the masses. So many people are asking me if I am going to put it to DVD and get it out on the streets. I am the black Michael Moore. I am trying to be Hip-hop’s Michael Moore and I am aiming for something like ‘Bowling for Columbine,’ ‘Fahrenheit 911’ as I want this to be a very informative, entertaining piece, but more importantly bring that quality level up, you know production wise, content wise and I am heading straight to the top. Oscars, Independent Spirit Awards, the whole nine, Cannes film festival, but do it all the right way. I figure with this idea because it is a strong topic and because it has such a ‘cultural’ reference to Hip-hop that we can lead everyone down the path. Every white, black, Asian whoever, everyone who enjoys hip-hop and hip-hop is just part of the main stream I think it will benefit me better than going after Lyndsey Lohan.
NOBODYSMILING.COM : I know you are showing it at the ‘Thank-God for Hip-hop Film Festival’ in Chicago in the New Year, are you planning on taking it to more festivals like this?
Kareem Edouard : Well first of all I rocked on with The Hip-Hop Association and I have to give them a big shout out as it is because of them I secured a lot of interest through the H20 Film Festival, The Hip-hop Odyssey Film Festival and it was because of a film festival in New York that’s how I got all the contacts to get KRS ONE and a whole slew of emcees to be a part of this. The festival directors, Martha and Mona, they definitely you know helped the process.
NOBODYSMILING.COM : How long did the project actually take to complete?
Kareem Edouard : The idea has been bubbling for three years but the actual physical production of it only took three months.
NOBODYSMILING.COM : So did you make a trip to Africa, to actually see this first hand?
Kareem Edouard : No, this footage I was working with GNN.TV and they had a film called the Diamond Life and I called the director and I explained to them what I was doing and because they understood I had another audience I was trying to reach as opposed to their original film, so they told me to go ahead and use the footage. I just went around the country filming different people and then I met with David Shiminov and the dealers.
NOBODYSMILING.COM : I thought the segment with the dealer who was involved in his own record label was funny, but it was also a mockery which I thought was sad.
Kareem Edouard : I thought that was funny. But is it sad if hip-hop allows it to happen? It is hip-hop that is allowing a dealer to sell these diamonds, make money and then decide to set up his own label. To me it is straight jokes and that is why I rewound it and hear him say it again. That part is very important. When he said that I couldn’t have asked for a better moment when he came out with that. As long as and it is weird and I say it to myself out loud all the time, because I have been doing this film so much, my mind associates your status with the size of your bling, so when I see a rapper coming up who is wearing a smaller chain or rock, I automatically think he has no record deal. I, the film maker who is trying to expose this still goes back to the bling watching. If you have small diamonds, you aren’t a top rapper. All day every day I am sitting down and watching and looking for bling for my new film. I watch MTV, BET and VH1, so now I am a bling watcher.
NOBODYSMILING.COM : What is the future looking like for you?
Kareem Edouard : I have had a couple of hip-hop documentaries that I will be putting out dealing with some smaller topics. I just wrapped up some music videos with Smiff and Wessun, so I am still holding down the hip-hop community.
NOBODYSMILING.COM : Are they blinging in their videos?
Kareem Edouard : No, but they are talking about guns which another whole topic by itself. But they are good emcees and they are doing their thing. I laughed about it as I was thinking about it last night, you know I am dealing with ‘Bling’ and I am doing a video called Gun Rap. I lose regardless.
NOBODYSMILING.COM : Talking about videos, if you were asked to direct a video that promoted the ‘bling’ lifestyle and you were set to make a lot of money from that project, would you be able to do it? You know it being business and being in this business to make money?
Kareem Edouard : I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. That one pay day may speak for my entire career. How could I possibly do that one video that encourages the abomination of blinging and put this film out to the masses and I could see it right now, for me to sit down with people and talk about this project and then as we all know people love to criticize, to have people say ‘well wait a minute, didn’t you make a video about grillz and chicks?’ For me being a director of music videos I have to take my project serious. I have to stay true; this film isn’t the only film I have up my sleeve as investigating hip-hop. This is only the first shock, I have about ten documentaries that are looking at different things in hip-hop, from video games to marketing that will be coming out real soon that is dealing with how this is a top flight culture, which is ours but we have no real say in it. How the marketing sense when hip-hop came out, how you had white kids spitting stupid rhymes to have you buy a box of cereal. We as filmmakers need to look into ourselves and we must look at hip-hop as it is a expressively creative culture and create an analysis of what hip-hop has done, where it is and where it is going.
Back to The New-Age Minstrel: Part 1
 ( 0) Comments | Post a comment »
|
|
