1. "I think this has a decent chance of happening" In response to Reply # 0
Considering Tip's rising notoriety after the documentary and recent collaborations, and the weight behind the two names attached. I think there is a rare opportunity here to have a music driven narrative that is both historical, and informative as well as possibly have crate digging and hip hop production get a lot of attention on camera. I think even if it was simply based on Q-TIp and not be a historical recreation, it would be really worth watching.
------------------- village.fm/okayplayer | @delajoo "Whether you're a rock star or a garbage man, if you think about yourself all the time, you won't be very good at what you do." - Frusciante
8. "Thank you for proving my point" In response to Reply # 4 Sun Jan-12-14 11:35 AM by handle
EDIT: It's a DRAMA???? Well that makes it about 100 times trickier.
If it's a That 70's Show it'll be a travesty, if it's Freaks and Geeks it'll be a triumph.
Hell, if it's Everybody Hates Chris level I'd watch it.
I fear it'll be Fame or Entourage.
Actually, what other TV shows followed a musical group/movement and haven't sucked? The Monkees? The Heights? That epsiode Laverne and Shirley where Lenny and The Squigtones perform Starcross http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kozXmXBuJHE or Night After Night http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLTx5ZwJiS0 . (Actually I liked The Lenny and The Squigtones record.)
Prove me wrong fellas and I'll sit through some of the ads on Hulu.
9. "How does that prove your point?" In response to Reply # 8
I mean, I can understand your feelings about comedy vs. drama... but we were talking about whether it's "too late" to make a show about the late 80s/early 90s. Obviously not.
11. "It's not about making a show set in the time period alone" In response to Reply # 9 Sun Jan-12-14 03:42 PM by handle
It's the subject (music) + the time.
It's be like if they made The Monkees in 1987. (Which they tried to do with The New Monkees that failed.)
Or The Partridge Family in 2004. (Which they did, and it failed.)
A Native Tongues show *at the time* may have worked, but now I see it being much trickier.
Is it going to be about THE NATIVE TONGUES? If so then Sammy B or Clive Calder or any number of people could super fuck it up by objecting to it.
If it's not, and it's a Native-Togue-ish crew then the music's going to have to be SLAMMING and new, but sound appropriate to that time period. Which will be damn near impossible.
It'd be like it's Entoruage, but set-in the past, and that if we loved and cherished the movies of Mark Walhberg.
12. "The 'trickiness' you describe is all valid." In response to Reply # 11
However, it still does not support your initial assertion that it's "too late" for such a show.
You could not have made a show like this back in 1989-1993. TV was not ready for it yet. And again, it would have actually been *too soon*
It's a drama with the emerging hip-hop scene as the backdrop. I don't think it's a variety show like Sonny & Cher or a series of elongated music videos like The Monkees or a karaoke musical like Glee. I don't think the show is gonna be all about the characters performing full musical numbers to the camera. So the concerns about the music being "slamming" enough are certainly valid, but hardly the most important consideration.
It's a DRAMA that happens to be set in a particular time period. Just like Masters of Sex, Game of Thrones or The Americans.
5. "the problem isn't getting it developed" In response to Reply # 0
the problem is getting NT to play nice about the shit, that's what will make this not be a thing
__________________________________________ CHOP-THESE-BITCHES!!!! ------------------------------------ Garhart Ivanhoe Poppwell Un-OK'd moderator for The Lesson and Make The Music (yes, I do's work up in here, and in your asscrease if you run foul of this
6. "I'd hope that the show would be about a *Native Tongues-esque* crew" In response to Reply # 5
As opposed to a show that's literally about De La, Tribe, JBeez, Latifah, Monie etc.
It's too creatively limiting (and risky) to tell stories about figures who are still alive... plus, they probably need a couple of major white characters in the crew too if the show is gonna get any serious mainstream traction.
7. "look at it like this" In response to Reply # 6
as soon as one of them looks at it and says "HOLY SHIT THATS ME" and doesn't like the light the character is portrayed in, it's a problem even if said NTer is wrong about the character
__________________________________________ CHOP-THESE-BITCHES!!!! ------------------------------------ Garhart Ivanhoe Poppwell Un-OK'd moderator for The Lesson and Make The Music (yes, I do's work up in here, and in your asscrease if you run foul of this
10. "As long as you got the standard disclaimer" In response to Reply # 7
"any resemblance to persons living in dead is coincidental..." and the character is changed enough that they're not a direct replica of an actual person, then cases like that are unlikely to get very far... though I'm sure bammas will try anyway.
Printer-friendly copy 
Email this topic to a friend
The Lesson
