Hip-hop was only seven years removed from Run-D.M.C.’s mainstream breakthrough, so making a film mocking gangsta rap wasn’t going to have the widest appeal to an audience who may not even know the genre well enough to grasp half of the jokes. Up to that point, Rock had primarily been wasting away as a lower-rung cast member on NBC’s long-running sketch series, overshadowed by elder statesmen like Phil Hartman and Dana Carvey and fellow newcomers Adam Sandler and Chris Farley. Nonetheless, the rawness and supposed “realness” of N.W.A was a perfect target for a young Chris Rock-and the movie served as the first significant thing the SNL alum had done on his own. The comedy aims for This Is Spinal Tap or Hollywood Shuffle–level greatness but falls somewhere closer to Spaceballs or Don’t Be A Menace… territory. Gusto conflict, but some of the parodies are dead-on-including a cameo from Stoney Jackson (yes, there’s a Stoney Jackson cameo in this) as the MC Hammer-esque Wacky Dee, Allen Payne’s Dead Mike going full-militant (a clever poke at Ice Cube’s 1991 conversion to Islam), and an overeager white documentarian detailing their rise and fall (the reliably odd Chris Elliott, giving one of his most pitch-perfect nervous-awkward performances.)ĬB4 is a bit of a cult classic for hip-hop fans-one of the first major motion pictures to go for the jugular in spoofing the genre at a time when it was desperately needed. Some scenes lose their punch midway through, and the film as a whole loses its satirical bite towards the end as the storyline gets sucked into the Gusto vs. The script tries to skewer gangsta-isms while also carrying a subplot involving a violent ex-con-the real “Gusto” from whom Rock’s character “borrows” his rap persona-with the story told as part of an ongoing documentary film being made about the group. Penned by funnyman Chris Rock and music journalist Nelson George, and directed with sometimes-astounding apathy by Tamra Davis, CB4 was a hip-hop mockumentary that told the tale of Albert aka “MC Gusto.” Hip-hop loving Albert and his two buddies Euripedes and Otis break free of the boredom of suburbia in fictional Locash, California, by reinventing themselves as a trio of foul-mouthed gangsta rappers named Gusto, Dead Mike, and Stab Master Arson, aka Cell Block 4 (CB4.) In an obvious spoof of N.W.A, they become the biggest sensations in rap music on the back of offensive, raunchy lyrics, and gangsta imagery. Try not to fret if you somehow missed this. Movie and music fans rejoice-because today not only marks the opening of the acclaimed N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton, but also the 22 and five-month, two-day anniversary of the 1993 comedy CB4.
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