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DVD Reviews: Rapmania


The Final Say!

Review Score
5/10
Reviewed by Tory Favro
Review Date: 01 February 2003
Distributed by:
The AV Channel
Running Time: 140 Minutes

Coming to this disc as an old school fan of rap music, this review was something that I truly looked forward to doing. I must confess that I was disappointed with the disc for a variety of reasons.

Being a fan of hip hop I was more than aware that the songs and artists on the DVD are more or less stars of yesteryear and if you would like a retrospective then maybe this disc is for you. For the most part however it reminded me of a time when hip hop had almost made it mainstream however commercial sensitivities had set in.

The footage consisted of live performances (not all live) of a joint concert taking part in both New York and Los Angeles where they would cut to each other via satellite. The stages for both sides of the country were abysmal and frankly the venues left a lot to be desired.

It was nice to see Run DMC and Ice T flow, however that was the first indication that not all was as it seemed when Run DMC's Jam Master Jay (DJ) spent most of the time on the stage waving his arms around while you clearly heard scratching happening on the music. Now I have seen Run DMC live in Australia back in the day and I know that any true DJ playing live wouldn't have spent that amount of time running around. Also it killed me to see that during Eric B & Rakim's set, Rakim was spitting rhymes over a pre-recorded vocal track.

In between each performance there would be short interludes where rappers would talk about how they came up in the game and what made them tick. For the most part, it was rappers that you did not care about telling you how it is (back then).

The quality of both audio and visual leaves a bit to be desired however is passable, although recorded in 5.1 it rarely takes advantage of this as well as it could have

All things said and done, this is a disc for the nostalgic only. For those seeking a great hip hop DVD it will only disappoint. It was nice to see that someone has put a hip hop concert on DVD such as this but a more up to date release would have been nicer still. As such I am giving it a 5/10

Rapmania Features

  • Extra Rapmania
  • Artist Selection

 

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