Brilliant Idea Up for Grabs!

It's hip-hop week on Fresh Air. I'm addicted to Fresh Air. It's my favorite thing to listen to on the radio. It airs at 1pm and repeats at 7pm, and often I'll listen to parts (if not all) of each broadcast. I truly believe that Terri Gross loves hip hop in a sort of futzy musicoligist way--she's a big jazz fan, and I think her husband is a jazz critic. So far this week they've rebroadcast interviews with Jam Master Jay, DMC, Russell Simmons, L.L. Cool J., and some other guys whose names I'm not cool enough to remeber or recognize. Ice T., Ice Cube, and lord knows who else are coming up. I wish they'd interview Rick Rubin, but his ouvre is beyond hip hop.

In the meantime, I'm still plowing through DVDs of the Ken Burns Jazz documentary that's like 1000 hours long. The swing era itself consumes about 5 hours. It's fun, though--I'm learning and remembering a lot. I used to listen to a lot of Billie Holiday, but back then I never knew it was Lester Young on all of those 30s recordings.

These two cultural erichments in my life have sparked an idea that I'll happily hand over to anyone with skills and ambition. I think someone should do a hip hop documentary series that's about 10 episodes long--kinda Burns-esque, but not so esoteric. And obviuously with more live footage. One hour for the origins or rap, one episode for Curtis Blow and Sugarhill and those really early guys, one for Run-DMC and that era, one for Public Enemy, one (or two) for late 80s/early 90s underground hip hop like EPMD, Tribe Called Quest, Ultramagnetic MCs, De La Soul...you see where this is going. It could end with whatever the hell is happening now: white trust fund chicks rapping, Kanye West, Crunk, Grime, Spanish stuff...it's a brilliant idea. I hope someone's working on it right now.