Hip-Hop Time Capsule: The Best of RETV 1992

Picture: C     Sound: C     Extras: C     Content: D

 

Let's get ghetto!  I mean "ghetto" in the half-ass, so/so, no-quality-control-button sense, of course.  Let's see here.  Second- or third-generation dubs of twelve-year-old music videos?  Check.  Dry top end and distorted bottome like the audio was recorded in a tin can with a boom box.  You betcha!  Corny, cheezy graphics?  Hey, why not, eh?  Hip-Hop Time Capsule has all this and worse.

This DVD focuses on the year 1992, a year in which much was changing in the rap scene with long-lasting implications.  RETV chronicles the year by showing videos from artists at that time.  This is where they fail because while they get artists on their way out (Public Enemy, Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One), they don't show anything from the new school that was on their way in (Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, etc.)  In fact, there feels like an immense West Coast bias on the part of RETV, which lessens the impact this DVD could have.  After all, in the early '90s, where was the spiritual center of hip-hop?  The west, my brother.

The presentation of the videos is, well, wack.  All the videos are shown in less than full-screen.  The clips are bordered by RETV graphics.  It's even worse for the interviews and live performances.  They get just a corner of the screen.  Why, I don't know, but unless you're sitting right in front of the TV set, they're difficult to pay attention to.

Extras include a few freestyles and an interview with Mecca from Digible Planets, but unless you're just dying to see Lord Finesse or the Fam-Lay in action, better steer clear.  For more information on this DVD, go to www.rapentertainment.com and see what they have to say.

 

-   Michael J. Farmer