Posted on 09/23/2005

 

Rap Entertainment Television (RETV) was a hip-hop video showcase that aired on New Jersey cable from 1992-96, and now they're releasing DVD collections of videos and interviews that the program aired in each of those individual years. The latest volume is a sometimes sobering reminder of 1993 (year of the turning-point): the previous polka-dot-new-jack-daisy-age had been beaten to death by roving gangs of LA bangers and NY baldheads, "keep it real" became the mantra and smilin' in public was against the law. Let's not forget: lots of stark black-and-white videos, ghetto-ruin backdrops, Karl Kani shirts, hoodies, and bubblegooses.

And man, did we love our guns in '93. Nearly half the videos here feature people wavin' gats around, or at least makin' "pop-pop" or "buck-buck" noises. Watching this today, when you can't even say "gun" on MTV, is more disconcerting now than it was then. Everyone's forgotten that back then, we were all saying that hip-hop was in a lamentable state because of this stuff - Common said "boy I tell ya - I miss h.e.r." for a reason. A decade-plus later, now that your average hip-hop is sonically and substantively depressing, we're pining away for this era.

The DVD does give us a decent selection of videos such as "Tonite's Da Night", "Dre Day", "Slam", and "I Get Around". But even the lesser stuff is cool to see again - there's Kool G Rap & DJ Polo's shoot-em-up video "On The Run" ("I'm a dead man walkin', underthtand? We gotta thplit!"), Naughty By Nature's "It's On" (why the dis to Sir Mix-A-Lot?), plus stuff from Da Youngstas, Paris, Boss, and Prince Markie Dee. (Oh, and Uncle L graces us with "Pink Cookies In A Plastic Bag".)

The previous volume (with KRS-ONE making a goofy face on the box), covering 1992, has been out, disappointing hip-hop heads for about a year. Yeah, you got to see live footage and videos you haven't seen in years, but they only played about 2/3 of each video, and not even full-screen; with an annoying graphic banner framing everything.

This edition mostly corrects those problems. The DVD shows the complete videos and the banner is absent, though you'll have to ignore a big "RETV" in the corner of the screen and an occasional (recently added) tiny-print blurb about the artist from allmusic.com. The digital transfer is better than you could expect, seeing how it's clearly from videotapes of an old cable access show—the colors are a little washed out, but it looks good.

Plus, there’s live footage of Onyx thrashin’ around on stage, and some old interviews with G Rap, MC Lyte, and the Jungle Brothers; Boss, Def Jam's gangsta bitch, looks more fucked-up in her interview than she did in the straitjacket in the "Deeper" video; and Naughty By Nature checks off their many innovations in a recently taped interview ("We pioneered anthems. Before us, it was just, you rhymed, and then you had a scratch hook [?!]... we pioneered the grimy-braided-Dickie-Timberland-boot-cool-to-be-dirty-Jersey-vibe... the list goes on...").