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mario van peebles – interview lyrics

maboo: you used your own money to bootstrap this movie – did it give you more creative control?

mario: definitely, i think making reductive cinema, especially about black folks, was not something i wanted to do. i wanted something authentic, displaying reality, that had music i thought was legit and made a statement about the music business. there’s a scene with record company execs telling them to s-xy it up and gangster it up, there’s a lot of things i would have had to water down if we went with a studio. me and my partner financed it, i paid myself a dollar a day to direct it..

maboo: you were worth it!4

mario: i’ll never work for myself again! lol – but doing that, you can make decisions real quickly. for better or worse, we could do things we felt like doing. my son mandela told me to feature the rejects’ song cab daddy in the movie, we did it, we didn’t have to check with anybody. now it’s got 82 million views on youtube! when you do a film like this and people wanna be a part of it – not because of the money – but for the message of the film.. snoop’s in the movie with his son, playing the dj, p diddy’s son is in the movie, one of the wayans’ boys is in teh movie, kids from hannah montana, that’s so raven, my kids – so we were chopping it up every day, i don’t know if we would’ve had that kind of freedom using somebody else’s money and making their vision

maboo: you’re an actor and your son’s a rapper? or are you blending those rolls?

mario: my son is an actor first, but he’s getting into rapping, putting a mixtape out. he’s got a musical sense, although now he’s actually directing me in a short he’s directing, which is real cool. some people call us the van peebles dynasty, but that’s too grand! we’re more like a family farmer family.. we are scr-ppy, my son’s out in the field, i’m on the tractor..

maboo: but is it acting or rapping that brings in the ladies? cause i”m sure that’s what your son’s wondering…

mario: i think people are attracted to folks doing what they wanna do. 3 loves in your life: love what you do, love the folks in your life, and try to say something you love with it. when you do all that, you have a feeling of wealthy without making money

maboo: that’s beautiful – your wife and daughter in this film are spectacular – do they cl!ck flows too?

mario: sally richardson plays my wife, she was in “posse” with tali lister – my boy got the rejects and yg in there.. some racial mix-up too! “house party” was mostly black and “breakfast club” was all white, “stand and deliver” was mostly latino – but in 2012, the world’s getting multy-culty! s-xism/racism/cl-ssism are still out there, but we’re broadening the spectrum racially and socioeconomically

maboo: so your son is getting a verified account, we’re dropping his mixtape. snoop and yg are getting verified accounts – what freestyle can we put up for you to get you a verified account on rap g*nius? maybe a script?

mario: there’s a song in the movie yg performs called “truth” in the movie, it’s based on pachebel’s “canon” (the first pop song) – i ghostwrote the lyrics! i write a lot of songs in my movies, like the first thing we did with clint eastwood in “heartbreak ridge” – also a lot of collabos with composer tree adams. in terms of the character, i don’t know if you saw the clip of yg wearing a hoodie, but i’ll let my mandela speak on the consciousness he shows:

mandela: yg’s character ceecee has the hoodie, the tattoos on his hand/face/neck/head – a misjudged, prejudged guy his whole life. in the party, we get put in a situation where we end up de-friending each other, but i find he’s a conscious person with some depth. in the real world, had yc got shot, that would be a sad case..

maboo: a dramatic setup! mario, did yg change up your lyrics at all?

mario: no once i broke it down to him – he puts his own spin on things, just like mandela with acting – but once he saw what the words meant, he understood how it moved the character forward. in a movie, a song ought to drive the narrative and be character-driven. as mandela says, the song brings a new level of consciousness in the mix

maboo: the soundtrack to this film – every song can be broken down on rap g*nius! tell us about the other selections and how they work into the plot

mario: big question! some pieces work primarily as score, some as source, and some as “scource” and all three cross over. the opening t-tle sequence has a jam that traffic plays with a source vibe, but it becomes a theme running through the whole movie, but in the prom scene it shows up in spanish with a reggaetone vibe! we have a piece played first on piano as ambient score, but then, in the tradition of gyptian’s “hold ya”, it takes on a rhythm in the scene in the park. it sounds good to the audience cause it sounds familiar, but now you’re hearing it more up-front!

maboo: you mentioned gyptian who i love, you have exquisite taste in music. your boy mandela is getting a verified account on rap g*nius – who else do you think would be down to educate their fans using rap g*nius?

mario: check out the “truth” video with yg! we gotta break that down!

maboo: yg signed up tho – who should we target next?

mario: “light at the end of the tunnel” with manela – at the end of the movie – is done with damon elliot. plays pretty nice. pink dollas’ stuff in the movie, kendre from snoop’s label, carlos from menudo is in the movie singing “sleeping in my car” at the party scene at the house. a lot of good jams to break down in this film! i’m sure you have the new boys up.. quincy brown’s got a lot of good music coming up, he acts in the movie but doesn’t perform in it

maboo: quincy brown, def gotta hit him up! this is an amazing project, a work of p-ssion. ties in well with rap g*nius’ mission

mario: we gotta hook up at some point, mandela will hit you up for the verified account, we got a plane to catch!

maboo: we gotta get you verified too! but starting with your son’s mixtape sounds amazing

- mario van peebles lyrics

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