Frameline Film Fest: Pick up the Mic June 22, 2006

Pick Up the Mic

What do you do when an art form that has been the outlet for a disenfranchised people is hurled hurtfully at people who are even more disenfranchised? In the swaggering and often homophobic world of rap and hip-hop, a few queer revolutionaries have done what revolutionaries always do —seize the means of production! Bursting at the seams with life, this documentary traces the incipient hopes of a generation of MCs out to claim verbal territory from a resistant musical genre.

Spanning the nation, filmmaker Alex Hinton introduces us to innovators and icons of the scene. Katastrophe, an FTM lyrical liberator, says he just wants to provide a place where queer hip-hop fans can go“ that doesn’t just fucking tear them down.” Dutchboy, a self-described funky bisexual, formed the first group of out rappers. Even in this small (but growing!) scene, there are a wide variety of styles and philosophies, from Miss Money, who says she’s a hip-hop artist who’s gay, not an artist who does gay hip-hop, to Johnny Dangerous, who spits out provocative and hilarious lyrics:“ They say every man’s home is his castle, while I know it’s really his asshole!”

Starting with the movement’s roots here in the Bay Area and culminating in the triumphant Peace Out East concert in New York, this movie triumphantly proves that somewhere in these dense curls of language is the key to a new way of thinking about gender, community, hip-hop and life itself.

—ARNE JOHNSON

PICK UP THE MIC dir Alex Hinton 2005 USA 95 min.

Following the screening be sure to check out an absolutely off the hook show with many of the performers from the film. Produced by The National Queer Arts Festival along with Juba Kalamka for more info go to wwww.queerculturalcenter
Co-presented by Queer Cultural Center

This program is sponsored by HBO.

Official Website: http://www.frameline.org/festival/30th/filmsevents.html