Articles at BlaxDotCom:
The whole thang part six

see also:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
PartFive

Part Seven
Part Eight

Convention in NY
Blax Chix

Introduction
Influence it had
Soundtrack index
Blax Chart Hits
Poster index
Movie index
links

I WAS THERE & I SAW THE WHOLE THANG - PART SIX
Anpu Ankhamen from Saint Louis, Missouri

THAT NEW JACK THANG

New Jack City deserves special attention because, in my subjective opinion, without the agency of accurate sales & attendance data from Management, it is the epitome of the New Blaxploitation Movie Era or THAT NEW JACK THANG.

Think about it.

What 'Shaft' was to the first blaxploitation movie explosion, my intuition indicates, 'New Jack City' will be the same in this second blaxploitation movement, but, alas, like before,Ê we must give it the test of time & then 20 years or so, around 2020 A.D., come back to slice, dice, bisect, dissect, theorize, philosophize, & pontificate upon the merits or the evils of 'New Jack City', 'Sugar Hill', 'Hoodlum', 'Ba-Ba Kids', etc.

However, in my opinion, for the time being I personally suggest that everyone sit back, enjoy, & savor the moment while it is here because in my lifetime I have learned the HARDWAY that the moment will not last forever ... so one day in the future you, too, can look the youth in the eye & honestly say, " Yeah, Dude. I know. I was there & I saw the whole thang!"

MAY I DIGRESS A MINUTE?

Many people around the Nation's Capitol are wondering why I have not listed the film 'DOLEMITE' in my dissertations about the Blaxploitation Movies of the 70s. In my own defense, I will say that the film version of DOLEMITE was crummy with bad acting, photography, technology & it was OLD NEWS because in Saint Louis, Missouri I grew up listening to the oral recitationsÊ of DOLEMITE, THE SIGNIFYING MONKEY, PIMPING SAM, BALL OF THE FREAKS, KING HERION every since I was old enough to go outside at night. For you see, there were nightly recitations of the heretoforesaid over a bottle of wine & a stick of Columbian under the LEARNING TREE by the 'big boys'. Us little boys sat at the feet of the big boys as they gave recitations of the days events in rhyme. If you could not make it rhyme then you were booed off the strip. The heretoforesaid were standards & by the time Rudy Ray Moore put Dolemite on the Big Screen I was able to recite it four different ways from ! memory without trying. A little trivia here: The best orators performedÊ all the characters of the recitations in different voices & attitudes. So by the time Rudy Ray Moore came around I was not impressed because he gave a soft, West-Coast version of said.

I have heard harder. But DOLEMITE gets an honorable mention because it is the first blaxploitation movie to rhyme all the way through.

Can anyone dispute that?

I am open for comments ... if you ain't scared to stand up & be counted.

Next: THE CONCLUSION.

© Copyright 1999
Anpu Ankhamen from Saint Louis, Missouri

We would like to thank Anpu and the Mothership
falettin us publish the whole thang here...
Stay tuned for the next parts...

All site contents ©1998 blaxploitation.com. The author has asserted his moral rights. Cover scans, album reviews, all other text content and/or pictures may only be used by prior permission of the.man@blaxploitation.com. But what the hell, I'm a nice guy, so drop me a line!