Outsiders who can vividly picture Harlem owe that image to Barry Michael Cooper. The man who wrote New Jack City, Above the Rim and Sugar Hill
made his New York youth cinematic, and perhaps provided the drama and
tension that so many mid-to-late ‘90s rappers used in their verses.
A former Village Voice
journalist-turned-Hollywood heavyweight, Cooper has been one of “us”
for two decades. Whether he was hanging with a young Spoonie Gee,
writing about Teddy Riley, or teaching his sons about the fantasies and
realities of DMX lyrics, Cooper always used Hip-Hop as a muse,
meanwhile inspiring the musical medium. In a candid two-part
interview, the veteran Cooper, now living in Baltimore, gives Hip-Hop
some cinematic and literary interpretation, reveals his latest Internet
film works Blood on the Walls,
discusses his Andre Harrell memoir, and discusses why Nas and Jay-Z are
on the same plane as Hemmingway and Capote. A true master of language
and drama, Barry Michael Cooper has immortalized Hip-Hop for two
decades, and he’s hardly out of ink.
AllHipHop.com: As a successful screenwriter and journalist, it’s little
surprise that you’d be contacted to assist Andre Harrell in his memoir.
However, did you have a preexisting relationship? How did this come to
be?
Barry Michael Cooper: I’ve known Andre off and on for about 20 years. What happened was, I met him when I did a piece for The Village Voice
called “Teddy Riley’s New Jack Swing.” I met him through [screenwriter
and author] Nelson George, one of my great friends. He and Greg Tate
were both Voice writers; I’m still working to get on their
level, even close to the way that they had put it down. Teddy and his
manager at the time, Gene Griffin didn’t trust reporters for whatever
reason. I had heard stories about Gene roughing up Andre in an MCA
[Records] conference room and all that. A lot of stuff, when you hear
it, it turns to mythos after awhile. It’s like the childhood game
Telephone.
I told Juanita Steffans, a great publicist at MCA at the time to let me
talk to either one of them. I knew the neighborhood that they come
from, ‘cause I used to get high in that neighborhood. Some kinda way I
got a chance to talk to Gene Griffin. He used to be Georgia Gene
Griffin, he drove a green [Rolls Royce], he had a King James Bible on
the dashboard and a .44 magnum in the glove compartment. I used to see
him at this cheeba spot called The Hardest Hard. I told him this, I
told him I knew this person and that person, so and so’s brother. He
said, “You sure you’re a reporter?” I said, “I used to get high on
129th Street, near St. Nick, sniffing twenties Fishscale.” He said,
“You win, money. You ain’t gotta say no more.” I was one of the
reporters ‘cause I told him I knew people. They took me under their
wing, so to speak. I wanted to take the street, the voices I heard in
the street and the characters in the street and match it with The Great Gatsby.
People say that was the birth of Hip-Hop journalism. I don’t know, it
could have been. There wasn’t anything like it before that, and I’m not
patting myself on the back. All I know is I wanted to give it a certain
street classicism.
AllHipHop.com: What year was this?
Barry Michael Cooper: This was ’87. I had just reread [F. Scott Fitzgerald’s] The Great Gatsby and [Truman Capote’s] In Cold Blood,
and I said to myself, “I want to ring like that.” This was a time like
when you had guys like [Harlem drug kingpins] Alpo and Rich and AZ.
Alpo was poppin’ wheelies all the way from 155th by the Rucker all the
way to 147th, and he’s doing it while the cop cars was out there; he’d
kick their door and have them chase him at two o’clock in the morning.
I said to myself, “This is a movie and somebody needs to be writing
this. I’m the person to do this.”
All of New Jack City, Sugar Hill and Above the Rim
comes from me being a part of this neighborhood, this Neo-Harlem
Renaissance stuff goin’ down. That’s how I met Andre. When Gene and
Teddy took me in, and I started [getting to people]. [After Gene
Griffith assaulted Andre Harrell in an MCA conference room], I called
Andre. Initially, he was very skeptical. He’s a brilliant guy – great
storyteller, humorous, deep guy. He said, “Who are you?” I told him,
“I’m the guy who wrote the Teddy Riley article?” [Eventually,] we found
out we went to the same high school. That’s how to I got to know Andre.
He said, “Look, I’m not gonna comment on that.” He was very
business-like, very polite and very friendly.
AllHipHop.com: Having that relationship for two decades, you were
worlds ahead of most writers pulled onto an assignment. But for the
memoir, how many hours of interviews do you think the two of you
logged?
Barry Michael Cooper: This book was started in late 2004, it’s just
being finished this week. It’s been through several drafts, it’s taken
a minute. But I wanted it to take that long. So many things have
transpired in that time. He’s a visionary. He said, “Barry, I want this
to feel like a movie about me. Write it like it’s a movie.” It’s very
cinematic in its quality. There’s arcs, levels, and it’s not just about
the record business. The tentative title is Notes on a Revolution: From Uptown to Nu America, The Andre Harrell Story
Without giving away too much, there was an except [on Mary J. Blige]
that ran on A-List, a great blog, just to give people a taste, right
after she cleaned up at the Grammy’s. It got a great reaction. The book
will be out, God willing, spring of 2008. It’s not gonna be like any
book out there. I’m not saying that ‘cause I’m some great writer, I’m
not. I’m okay, I do my thing. I say that because Andre’s life is so
deep and rich and textured. It’s gonna knock people out.
AllHipHop.com: As the great achievements are celebrated, readers will
always want to know how the controversy or awkward points are treated.
You mentioned Gene Griffith; to what extent, did you address the myth
involving Suge Knight bullying Andre over Mary J. Blige?
Barry Michael Cooper: I did ask Andre about that, and he says the truth
is that was blown out of proportion. He and Suge had a mutual respect
for each other, and without giving too much away, I will just say this:
Andre’s observation of that era in the ’90s really speaks to that whole
moment in time. That was a confluence. From ’92 to ’98-’99, you had so
many things that happened. You had Suge Knight emerging as this larger
than life character. Puffy became this incredible, mythic character.
You had the rise and fall of the two greatest MCs that ever lived –
outside of Jay-Z right now, Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace. It
changed Hip-Hop forever. It took Hip-Hop from the corner and put it all
over the globe; it made it corporate. It made it cinematic – [look at]
Hype Williams. It was a pivotal time in the culture. When it became
corporate, it became larger than life – Paramount Studios [meets]
Enron”.
We’re feeling the Enron part of it now. The sales are dropping. People
are turning on a hot, bright light to examine the lyrics, the
motivation, the culture itself. It’s not gonna crumble; there is gonna
be a rebirth of Hip-Hop. I think you see it with Lupe Fiasco – even The
Clipse; I don’t think people give those kids out of Virginia enough
respect. To me, they’re twin Biggies. They are like Voltaire, man.
Hip-Hop needs to find a way to present itself out of the maliciousness,
the negativity, and that stuff that corporate cultured used to magnify
and get their dollar in these great, rich-textured, multi-level, global
culture once again. That’s what Nas is trying to say in [Hip Hop is Dead].
If I’m reading the hieroglyphics of Nas correctly, Nas is not trying to
say that the music is dead, [but that] the culture has died. It’s on
cardiac arrest, it needs to be revived.
Jay-Z put out an incredible album [in Kingdom Come].
That’s a grown man’s album. Hip-Hop has grown up. It’s going on its
proper rite of passage into manhood, and people don’t want to accept
that. They want it to be infantile and juvenile, and it’s not anymore.
My sons are into Hip-Hop now; one is a producer, the other is a
filmmaker. When they were in middle school, they brought home DMX’s [It’s Dark and Hell is Hot].
I heard [“Damien”] on there with the Chuckie character, and I’m like,
“Check this out. I’m gonna play you this tape right now. We’re gonnas
listen to it together. I’m gonna explain to you what’s real and not
real.” That was a pivotal moment for me and my two sons, who are grown
men now. I said, “I’m not gonna keep this from you, nor would I try to
censor this from you. But I want you to understand as young Black men,
as Christians – I’m not going to stop you from listening to this music,
you’re in the world. In it, but not of it. Since you’re in it, you’ve
got to understand your environment.” They never forgot that. My father
did the same thing to me and my brother when I’d sneak off and try to
listen to Richard Pryor’s The N***a is Crazy. I love my father to this day for that too. That’s what’s missing in the culture! That’s why people are not getting Kingdom Come and Hip Hop is Dead,
‘cause there’s nobody to mentor and talk to their seeds. Listen to what
these old heads – these brilliant, seasoned geniuses are trying to tell
you. Nas and Jay-Z right now are [timeless authors] Richard Wright and
James Baldwin; they are Truman Capote and Ernest Hemmingway. Nobody’s
on their level right now.
AllHipHop.com: With the exception of “Dope Man” by N.W.A. and a few
other choice records, smoking and or selling crack was rarely discussed
in Hip-Hop until movies, especially New Jack City
came out. I think its glorious that your film, your script opened up
doors, but as somebody with a stake in Hip-Hop, how did you feel five
years later, when you saw its affect on the strongest voices in the
medium?
Barry Michael Cooper: That’s a great question, Jake. I remember when a
guy was shot and killed during that opening weekend. The media came to
me, and I really didn’t know what to say. I said something stupid; I
was young and stupid. People forget…Nino [Brown] was murdered at the
end of that movie. He was murdered vaingloriously too. There was no
honor in the way that man shot him. People forget that. People look at
what they want to look at. Tony Montana died in the hail of a million
bullets in a cocaine-induced stupor.
I know that the movie had an enormous affect on the culture. Nino was
portrayed, not by accident, as this brilliant, Machiavellian,
articulate, well-groomed, powerful Black man. We hadn’t seen that in a
long time. Coming out of the Reagan-era, transitioning into Bush 1.0,
he was like an anti-hero. They took the wrong things from this guy.
Growing up, my hero was the anti-hero in Leroy “Nicky” Barnes. I didn’t
want to sell drugs; I wanted to dress like him, I wanted to talk like
him, I wanted to have his swag, and I wanted to have his power – but I
wanted to do it as a writer. I wanted to be a powerful Black man. I
like this dude’s get-down, but I’m not trying to sell no drugs; I know
that’s short-term. I know it! People will take what they want to take
from Nino Brown, from G-Money, from the Cash Money brothers. It’s
influenced from Jigga to Puff to a record company naming themselves
Cash Money [Records]. Lil’ Wayne, even though his last name is Carter,
he called [his albums] The Carter.
It had a definite influence on these guys who became multi-millionaires
in of themselves. Something good came from it, but I’m not defending
the negativity of it. It had to be very brutal and intense as far as
getting the message across. It’s on you to take the message. Fifteen
years later, 16 years, Jake, I’m proud of the movie.