The History Behind Dream Battler: Rhyme to the Finish Watching this brings back memories of one of the more stressful films I've been involved in. This started out with the best of intentions; as a collaboration between local hip hop impresario Steve "Big Money" Jenkins and yours truly. I had already done a couple of videos for one of the acts on his label; local group The Fabulous Cruz Brothers - mostly live, with some run-n-gun action shots in their housing project. The videos, especially the one for "Rock Your Body Harder", were well received. That one ended up getting heavy rotation on the popular rap-oriented cable access show, "The Street: With Monisha Williams". (If the name sounds familiar, Ms. Williams is best known for her on-air brawl with West Coast superstar Professor Drug). Anyway, when Steve approached me with the idea of making a full-length movie about rival rap groups competing in the Battle of the Rappers, I was kind of excited to be a part of something like this. There had never really been a cinematic record of Tampa's vibrant late-80's rap scene (save for Beach Breakin: Bust a Bikini Move) and I was honored to be chosen as the director. It didn't take long before I realized my true role in making this film. A little history on the principal characters is in order before we go any further. Steve Jenkins got his start in the early 80's as a founder and MC of the seminal St. Petersburg rap group Electric Freeze. After 4 albums (Brain Freeze and Electric Passion Juice are stand-outs) and an opening slot for Run-DMC, they disbanded in 1986 to pursue their individual passions. Steve knew immediately that he wanted to step away from the performing side of rap and move toward the business end. His first move was to use a portion of his considerable savings and purchase a house in the Seminole Heights district of Tampa complete with a 24 track recording studio. He converted the rear of the house to an office, and installed a wet bar in the studio. Within 6 months Bootsy Camp (in honor of his favorite pit bull Bootsy, named for her habit of eating combat boots) became the premier hip-hop studio on the west coast of Florida. Steve accomplished this partly by luring Jason "Mac-10" Macintosh as producer (creating some bad blood between Bootsy Camp and Gold Plated Productions) and partly by actively recruiting talented young rappers from the Robles Park and College Hill projects. Although a stroke of genius on paper, as no one had actively recruited and molded the careers of the talented young poets from the projects, in reality it didn't work as smoothly as it should have. A lot of the blame goes to the fact that Steve refused to recognize that Robles Park was controlled by the Diablos, while College Hill was the domain of the SNP (Silent Ninja Posse). In Steve's mind, gang affiliations were a temporary phase, to be discarded when something better came along (like a recording deal with Bootsy Camp records). To the gang members, their gang membership ran stronger than family. Although a few fights broke out at the studio and some threats were made, it didn't really become an issue until it was time to shoot the film (lucky me). After about a week of collaboration (I mainly took notes), Steve and I came up with the story for Dream Battler: Rhyme to the Finish. The main character in the film was named Styles, and he was an aspiring MC who looked after his legally blind mother and wheelchair-bound younger brother. Styles was to be played by Jermaine "Do Right" Dupree, MC for Velvet Krush, winner of that year's Battle of the MCs. Jermaine quickly showed himself to be more than just a talented MC. He was also a rather impressive actor, thanks to his natural charisma, as well as a womanizer extraordinaire. His first day on the set he arrived with his posse (made up exclusively of members of the Diablos), as well as two magnificent women, one draped on each arm. It was well that he brought his entourage, because the MC playing his nemesis, Michael "MJ Vicious" Johnson, was there with his crew, who happened to be members of the SNP. Michael was quick to blow a kiss to one of the women. As Jermaine looked incredulously at his woman, she blew a kiss back to Michael. That was it - Jermaine ran full force at Michael, followed closely by his friends. Michael, who stood his ground, simply removed the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it with his left hand at his approaching co-star. As Jermaine dodged the lit cigarette, Michael unleashed his right, dropping Jermaine. In the half-second that it took Jermaine to get back to his feet, the two gangs began to clash full force. Pretty evenly matched, the rumble went on for a good 5 minutes before Steve Jenkins' enormous baritone stopped everyone in their tracks. "What the hell do you fools think you're doing? Quit your fooling around and get over here! We've got a movie to make." And wouldn't you know, they came over and fell into some semblance of a line. Steve spent the next 20 minutes channeling a Marine drill instructor and a Baptist preacher in order to communicate to these young gang members exactly what it took to make a movie, what it took to become successful like him, and what he expected of them. After his speech, I decided to take advantage of the temporary peace and convince the two posses to leave, reasoning that if everyone but the two actors left, they would at least be evenly matched. Steve's speech must have had more effect on them than anticipated, because they agreed with what I said and left without a grumble. Now we could make our movie. I wanted to start with a scene that was simple to set up, but would give me a chance to see how skilled my actors were. I figured the breakfast scene in which Styles first mentions to his mother that he wants to enter the Battle of the Rhymes would be a good start: just a mild reproach from the mother. We prepped the set (Steve's kitchen) and called for the actors. First came Jermaine, almost as if in a trance, and sat in his mother's seat. This wasn't a good sign. Next came Trevor, who played his younger brother, and was cast more for his breakdancing skill than his acting ability (there was some disagreement between your humble narrator and Mr. Jenkins regarding the finale - when the younger brother would leap out of his wheelchair and begin breakdancing). Trevor walked in and sat in the other chair. Not wheeled. Walked. "Trevor, where's the chair?" "I'm not sitting in that thing! Ms. Corretta got sick in it." When I dispatched my surly assistant (damn college kids) to find our matronly co-star, I was informed that Ms. Corretta was passed out drunk in the wheelchair, and had managed to get sick all over herself. This is when I called Steve. After some discussion, it was decided that a "punk-ass pussy" such as myself was not prepared to direct the movie, and Steve installed himself in that position. The rest of the production must have gone on without a hitch (yeah right; e-mail me for some interesting newspaper clips I've collected) because 11 months later the movie premiered at the Fun-Lan Drive In. Although I wasn't invited to the premier, I did catch it that week. I'm not sure what happened to it after that, but some readers mentioned seeing copies in cult video stores. The clip that's included in the Season 2 premiere is the only portion of the movie I still have, and the only piece I own the rights to (Steve re-filmed the intro as soon as I jumped ship).