Review of Notorious (2009) by Chads. — 23 Jan 2009

For an indie-rock fan like myself, insulated from the casual scatology of gangsta rap, east coast/west coast in the early-to-mid-nineties, symbolized Chapel Hill's unsuccessful attempt to usurp Seattle as ground zero in the wake of the alternative rock explosion.

Archers of Loaf's "Web in Front"("Stuck a pin in your backbone/Spoke it down from there...") should have been the scene's breakout song that challenged Kurt Cobain for his throne, and put North Carolina, front and center, in the nation's consciousness.

Sad for the true believers, Eric Bachmann never was a household name, and never will be. But that's no reason to reach for your revolver and shoot Eddie Vedder, right? Watching "Notorious", it all came back to me, the sensational news report about musicians planning hits on each other like street gangs; a scenario that would seemed ludicrous, even for the equally squalid American hardcore scene.

While all musical biopics sanitize their subjects, "Notorious" seems ill-fitted for the kid gloves treatment, you would think, since the appeal of Christopher Wallace's music was his song-as-documentary approach.

"Notorious" doesn't keep it real. Save the sentimental scenes with his mother(Angela Bassett) for a Tyler Perry flick. Whitewashing the street out from The Notorious B.I.G.'s soul, robs his music and lyrics of its visceral tableau quality.

"Notorious" demystifies gangsta rap by refuting the perception that both factions plotted the deaths of their two brightest stars. Gangsta rap, with all its violent imagery, nihilism, and misoginistic notions about women, can only be justified, as the argument is made time and time again by the genre's proponents, that it's a reflection of inner city life.

If gangsta rap is not always unequivocally honest, which "Notorious" suggests, since the filmmaker absolves Wallace and his entourage from any part in Tupak Shakur's assassination, the two rap artists edge closer to being professional wrestlers, than men who talk and walk.

Art imitating life is one thing, but if life is imitating an art that creates the life it purports to be imitating, then the naysayers have a point about rap being a menace to society. The novelty of a dead narrator goes all the way back to Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard" when William Holden did the honors, but Shakur fans might be rankled by the B.

I.G.'s VO, since the documentary "Tupac: Resurrected" used the same tactic.