Brooklyn rapper/actor Mos Def recently announced his plans to produce a documentary about obscure 1970s punk band, Death.
In the new issue of Filter magazine, The Mighty Mos briefly discussed possibly collaborating with ex- Roc-A-Fella big Damon Dash to make the film about the black rock group, made up of three brothers from Detroit.
“It’s going to be great,” Mos told Filter. “These dudes were pre-Sex Pistols, pre-Bad Brains, pre-all that shit, and nobody knows them. I don’t understand how the whole world could forget them.”
While he remained tight-lipped about his role in the project, the Harlem mogul sang the Brooklyn MC’s praises when contacted by XXLMag.com.
“Anything Mos wants to do I’ll do cause I think he’s intelligent,” Dash said. “I think he’s a great ambassador for hip-hop. I personally don’t like to talk about things until it’s done. So when it’s done, when it’s ready—all I’m saying is that Mos Def is a really ill dude.”
Mos Def released his fourth solo album, The Ecstatic, in June. –John Kennedy, with additional reporting by Clover Hope
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July 9th, 2009
at 5:39 pm
peenyy moode says:
YO IS J-HAZE FROM AMALGAM DIGITAL GONNA BE IN DIS MOVIE??
Reply
July 9th, 2009
at 5:40 pm
$ykotic says:
Don’t see anything wrong with that. Good luck.
Reply
July 9th, 2009
at 5:50 pm
Tony Grand$ says:
May actually be interesting. I’m going to research them dudes.
Reply
July 9th, 2009
at 9:25 pm
joe p says:
wont buy it but i sure will download it !!
http://www.myspace.com/clammyclaude
Reply
July 9th, 2009
at 10:24 pm
the brown says:
Yo! “..ill dude” is right. Mos’ has got a knack for music outside of rap music, and yes he is an ambassador for hip hop as well. I knew he had something up his sleeve on this heavy shit. Fishbone is ill, but I knew he had some other rock roots. I never heard of Death but rest assured Ima dig in to this. “..Elvis Presley ain’t got no SOUL!, Bo Diddly is rock and roll. You may dig on the Rolling Stones but they could never ever rock like Nina Simone ( I say whooooooooa oh!…)”
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July 9th, 2009
at 10:34 pm
DaBigBoy says:
Mos Def is a good guy!
Reply
July 10th, 2009
at 3:18 am
stoneyisland says:
Death was a band formed in Detroit, Michigan, in 1971 by the brothers Bobby (bass, vocals), David (guitar), and Dannis (drums) Hackney. The African-American trio started out as an R&B band but switched to rock after seeing an Alice Cooper show.[1] Music critic Peter Margasak retrospectively wrote of their musical direction, “The youngest of the brothers, guitarist David, pushed the group in a hard-rock direction that presaged punk, and while this certainly didn’t help them find a following in the mid-70s, today it makes them look like visionaries.”[2]
The young Hackney brothers were sat down by their father to witness The Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The following day, eldest sibling David found a discarded guitar in an alley.
In 1975 at Detroit’s United Sound Studios with engineer Jim Vitti, they recorded seven songs written by David and Bobby. According to the Hackney family, Columbia Records president Clive Davis funded the recording sessions, but asked the band to change its name to something more commercially palatable than Death. When the Hackneys refused, Davis ceased his support[3]. At any rate, they only recorded seven songs instead of the planned dozen. The following year they self-released 500 copies from the session on the 7″ single “Politicians in My Eyes” b/w “Keep on Knocking,” on their Tryangle label, which eventually became a collectors’ item.
The brothers then moved to Burlington, Vermont, and released two albums of gospel rock as The 4th Movement in the early 1980s. David moved back to Detroit in 1982, and died of lung cancer in 2000. Bobby and Dannis still reside in Vermont and lead the reggae band Lambsbread. After hearing Death’s music played at underground parties in California and witnessing the crowd’s “wild” response to it[4], Bobby’s 3 sons, Bobby Hackney Jr. (vocals), Julian Hackney (guitar), Urian Hackney (drums) and two friends Dylan Giambatista (guitar) and Steve (bass) formed a punk band called Rough Francis in their family’s honor. Rough Francis is a musical tribute to Death, and they also write original material that is heavily influenced by their elders.
In 2009, Drag City records released all seven Death recordings on CD and LP under the title …For the Whole World to See.
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July 10th, 2009
at 9:22 am
Silly Willy says:
And the new title for world’s most accurate encyclopedia goes to……….
Nice work, Stoney ! I’ll check it out!
Thanks!
Reply
July 10th, 2009
at 3:38 pm
Daily Recap - 7/10/09 at SNICKA.com says:
[...] Mos Def & Damon Dash Working on Rock Doc? [...]
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February 3rd, 2010
at 11:22 pm
Blok Movaz says:
[...] including a new Televison network, internet radio station and a movie with rapper/actor Mos Def. Mos first spoke on the possibility of the film— a documentary about an obscure all-black punk band named Death [...]
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