Fear of a Black Hat

1994 hip hop mockumentary

Rating: 11/20

Plot: A year in the life of rap trio NWH (Niggaz With Hats). When the niggas discover newfound success, conflicts between the niggaz fester.

Ah, what this could have or should have been. It lifts the style, the plot arc, and even some jokes straight from This Is Spinal Tap, stealing them as freely as rap groups have sampled from James Brown. It's nowhere near as funny or as natural, however. It starts with a really cheap joke about gratuitous language. From there, there are some hits and lots of misses. The main problem is that it has a very staged/scripted feel instead of having a foundation of improvisation. There are also too many cameras in some scenes, and they make a huge mistake by adding cartoonish sound effects during a scene involving guns. It does nothing but take away whatever documentary realism it might have. I do like the female rap quartet known as Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme though, and the roomful of Ices made me laugh. But most of the jokes are just too obvious. So is the satire. Misogyny, violence, superficial politics in rap lyrics, rapper feuds, and the idea that all black people steal things are targets that are much too easy to hit, and they aren't hit in necessarily clever ways here. The songs are reasonably well done although they all sound pretty much the same. I wish this one was better because the potential was definitely there.