Origins: The Story of Irish Hip Hop on RTE Sep 3 at 10:15pm

coinop · 02-09-2020 3:07am #1

Hope this portrays Irish hip-hop in a fair light. Last time RTE did a documentary on the Irish scene it was like a parody. I'd be interested in watching this but don't currently live in Ireland. Can somebody record this and stick the it up on Youtube or Vimeo?

Cast Iron · 07-09-2020 10:00pm

I watched it on the RTE player (edit-sorry just noticed you said you dont live in Ireland so maybe player doesn't work abroad anymore). Worth a look, it got well treated but it was too short, maybe 3 part series would've worked better. Still decent effort and a decent number of artists past and present got in there.

coinop · 08-09-2020 5:38am

Correct, I cannot watch it on the RTE player due to living abroad. Any whizz kids around here should be able to rip the video from the RTE player and stick it on Vimeo or Youtube.

Boom_Bap · 08-09-2020 5:02pm

It's going to be streaming on the Red Bull website in a couple of days.

My main gripes with this are:
- it was not about the origins
- if it was it missed out on loads and loads and loads
- Una Mullaley
- it was more a showcase for the more prominent hip hop artists that are around now
- Una Mullaley

I know everything cannot be touched on in a 50 minute doc, but there was a whole era of hip hop, 4 elements of hip hop bubbling in Dublin, Galway and Cork in the late 90's and 00's. Record shops, clothes shops and gigs were meeting points for sharing, pirate radio shows were places to talk music and hear the new stuff. DMCs and ITF DJing championships were held here which were massive events for the culture. Independent artists from all over the US added Ireland to it's touring schedule.
Then there was the battle scene that was very popular here and kept things alive for a while when the gigs were drying up.
What irked me is that it was spoken about the more current crops are trendsetters in this, they are just continuing to build on what was before them.
I'm in no way sh*tting on the newer folk, I've admiration for them and dig their stuff and what they are doing. But to overlook the origins
DJ Flip and Rob Kelly started to talk about the 00's but they didn't get a proper crack of the interview whip to dig deep into what they done for Ireland.

Scary got a great feature in that doc, well deserved, but jumping from them and gliding over everything else to the present day was a bit shortsighted.
There were also glaring omissions. Glaring omissions, and what makes these even worse, Una Mullaley got screen time ahead of them.

Una likes hip hop, I get it, she writes about it occasionally, I get it, but I don't get why she is a commentary on the subject.

Again, I'm not sh*tting on it, I enjoyed watching it, but I think that it should have been presented differently and expanded out over more episodes.

tossy · 09-09-2020 8:38am

Boom_Bap wrote: »

It's going to be streaming on the Red Bull website in a couple of days.

My main gripes with this are:
- it was not about the origins
- if it was it missed out on loads and loads and loads
- Una Mullaley
- it was more a showcase for the more prominent hip hop artists that are around now
- Una Mullaley

I know everything cannot be touched on in a 50 minute doc, but there was a whole era of hip hop, 4 elements of hip hop bubbling in Dublin, Galway and Cork in the late 90's and 00's. Record shops, clothes shops and gigs were meeting points for sharing, pirate radio shows were places to talk music and hear the new stuff. DMCs and ITF DJing championships were held here which were massive events for the culture. Independent artists from all over the US added Ireland to it's touring schedule.
Then there was the battle scene that was very popular here and kept things alive for a while when the gigs were drying up.
What irked me is that it was spoken about the more current crops are trendsetters in this, they are just continuing to build on what was before them.
I'm in no way sh*tting on the newer folk, I've admiration for them and dig their stuff and what they are doing. But to overlook the origins
DJ Flip and Rob Kelly started to talk about the 00's but they didn't get a proper crack of the interview whip to dig deep into what they done for Ireland.

Scary got a great feature in that doc, well deserved, but jumping from them and gliding over everything else to the present day was a bit shortsighted.
There were also glaring omissions. Glaring omissions, and what makes these even worse, Una Mullaley got screen time ahead of them.

Una likes hip hop, I get it, she writes about it occasionally, I get it, but I don't get why she is a commentary on the subject.

Again, I'm not sh*tting on it, I enjoyed watching it, but I think that it should have been presented differently and expanded out over more episodes.

Nail on the head stuff there.

zoobizoo · 09-09-2020 12:54pm

Have just turned it on and thought to myself "is that Una Mullaly?... WTF is she doing on here?"

MrKingsley · 09-09-2020 2:06pm

zoobizoo wrote: »

Have just turned it on and thought to myself "is that Una Mullaly?... WTF is she doing on here?"

Yeah herself and Emmet Kirwan providing the "social commentary" on it was pointless I think. They were really trying to tie hip hop into modern day Ireland and our roots. When lets be honest. It is not.

I thought the documentary was well made but it just skipped through the 90s and early 2000's I found.

I was a massive MJEX fan and thought they deserved a bit more screentime. As did a few others from that time.

It just seemed to go Scary Eire - rapping in an Irish accent - the current rappers. And very little in between.

As I said it was well produced I thought and had some great tracks that I've not heard for a while. Made me go back and have a listen to a few albums that I'd completely forgotten about

MrKingsley · 09-09-2020 2:08pm

Boom_Bap wrote: »

It's going to be streaming on the Red Bull website in a couple of days.

My main gripes with this are:
- it was not about the origins
- if it was it missed out on loads and loads and loads
- Una Mullaley
- it was more a showcase for the more prominent hip hop artists that are around now
- Una Mullaley

I know everything cannot be touched on in a 50 minute doc, but there was a whole era of hip hop, 4 elements of hip hop bubbling in Dublin, Galway and Cork in the late 90's and 00's. Record shops, clothes shops and gigs were meeting points for sharing, pirate radio shows were places to talk music and hear the new stuff. DMCs and ITF DJing championships were held here which were massive events for the culture. Independent artists from all over the US added Ireland to it's touring schedule.
Then there was the battle scene that was very popular here and kept things alive for a while when the gigs were drying up.
What irked me is that it was spoken about the more current crops are trendsetters in this, they are just continuing to build on what was before them.
I'm in no way sh*tting on the newer folk, I've admiration for them and dig their stuff and what they are doing. But to overlook the origins
DJ Flip and Rob Kelly started to talk about the 00's but they didn't get a proper crack of the interview whip to dig deep into what they done for Ireland.

Scary got a great feature in that doc, well deserved, but jumping from them and gliding over everything else to the present day was a bit shortsighted.
There were also glaring omissions. Glaring omissions, and what makes these even worse, Una Mullaley got screen time ahead of them.

Una likes hip hop, I get it, she writes about it occasionally, I get it, but I don't get why she is a commentary on the subject.

Again, I'm not sh*tting on it, I enjoyed watching it, but I think that it should have been presented differently and expanded out over more episodes.

Missed this post. Spot on here Boom. Please don't report me for plagiarism

zoobizoo · 09-09-2020 2:51pm

MrKingsley wrote: »

Yeah herself and Emmet Kirwan providing the "social commentary" on it was pointless I think. They were really trying to tie hip hop into modern day Ireland and our roots. When lets be honest. It is not.

Yeah - when I heard the "no one could believe that people were rapping in an Irish accent" I eye rolled.

Saw Scary Eire perform in the Buttery in Trinity in the early 90s.

Still think Ri-Ra's '25 O'Clock in the morning' is the best Irish hip hop track ever.

Boom_Bap · 09-09-2020 2:53pm

There's probably more info on the origins here -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_hip_hop

MrKingsley · 09-09-2020 3:05pm

As someone said above they really missed a beat by just making it a once off.

A three part series. 1. 80s-90s the origins. 2. 2000s-2010 and 3. Where we are now could really have been something.

I honestly think it was just an advert for young mcs and producers. They just wanted to showcase them. Nothing wrong with that mind but it was most definitely an opportunity missed

coinop · 10-09-2020 2:58am

Boom_Bap wrote: »

It's going to be streaming on the Red Bull website in a couple of days.

Ah good stuff. I'll have to check it out there if it's not region locked and I'll give my thoughts afterwards. Glad to hear pioneers like Rob Kelly got a shout out on the doc. A lot of people don't know about his connections in the US rap scene with Memphis Bleek and the Roc-A-Fella crew. Rubberbandits don't deserve a spot imo because what they do isn't rap but then again I'm biased cos I think they're fools.

iamstop · 11-09-2020 8:22pm

Boom_Bap wrote: »

It's going to be streaming on the Red Bull website in a couple of days.

https://www.redbull.com/ie-en/projects/origins-irish-hip-hop-film

coinop · 12-09-2020 3:10am

Just finished watching the documentary (thanks for the link) so I want to write down my initial thoughts while they're fresh in my head.
First off, the documentary itself was well-produced. Slick, professional look with a wide range of contributors. I wasn't aware of the Scary Éire incident at the U2 concert. Knocking out two teenage girls...jesus. Yer man must have been off his head on coke. I'd imagine that the crowd at a U2 concert may not necessarily be receptive to rap music. Especially back then and especially Irish rap music. Personally I was never a major fan of Scary Éire's music but I can appreciate their position in the history of Irish hip-hop. Somebody had to be the first.

Glad to see that Lunitic got a mention (RIP) and of course Rob Kelly. But what about Terawrizt, Redzer and the rest of the Class A'z? It almost seems like they were deliberately left out for some reason. They were previously featured on RTE documentaries on Irish hip hop where they were mocked heavily afterwards so maybe they chose to not to participate in this one.

I was completely lost in the second half of the show. I didn't recognize a single name. BIIG PIIG rapping in Spanish to a crowd of androgynous hipsters? Nah, not my scene. Ditto for the Africans speaking in London accents. There is an attempt to whitewash Irish hip-hop and act like our favourite rappers didn't call their opponents fagggots and rap about shagging as many women as possible. The documentary gave disproportionate prominence to the skinny, introverted, effeminate rappers who would be afraid to look you in the eye in person. I should have known something was up when Una Mullaly and David Chambers appeared with a bag on his head.

I would have like to have seen more coverage of the old rap radio shows like 2FM's the Big Smoke where rap music didn't get played except for midnight on a Friday. Maybe more footage of rap gigs throughout the years. Overall not a bad effort if we ignore the entire second half of forced social justice propaganda.

IAMAMORON · 14-09-2020 12:50am

IAMAMORON · 14-09-2020 12:54am

sasta le · 20-11-2020 7:30am

I see Denise Chaila is favour of the month...is she American or what

Origins: The Story of Irish Hip Hop on RTE Sep 3 at 10:15pm

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