Having copped on to the fact that he’s a pretty rubbish actor – not opinion, scientific fact! – Ice-T has turned director with Something From Nothing: The Art Of Rap, a hip hopumentary that’s already wowed ‘em at Sundance Film Festival.

With Afrika Bambaataa, Big Daddy Kane, Common, Run DMC, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Ice Cube, Kanye West, Nas, Q-Tip, Snoop, KRS-One, Kool Keith, Raekwon, Rakim and Redman on his speed-dial, it’s the near definitive account of how a bunch of Bronx B-Boys created an art form that went on to conquer the planet.
Asked by Associated Press who was the hardest to pin down for the film, Ice-T said immediately: “Eminem… It wasn’t his fault. Everybody on the phone call said, ‘Yes’. Even people like Lil’ Wayne, Birdman and Ludacris. But I had a camera crew that’s in London, I had myself who was on Law & Order full-time then I’m trying to get you. It’s just trying to triangulate people. It was tough.”
Read the full interview and see the trailer at theartofrap.com.
CIN is indebted to David Holmes for pointing us in the direction of Searching For Sugarman, two fans’ quest to find Detroit singer-songwriter Rodriguez who released a brace of critically acclaimed but commercially underachieving records in the early ‘70s and then dropped off the face of the planet.
What Rodriguez is blissfully unaware of until he’s tracked down is that thanks to his inclusion on a series of compilations – one of them curated by Holmer – and subsequent word of mouth, he’s become a huge star in South Africa where the aforementioned fans are from.
Get the whole story at sugarman.org.
Top of the Caught In The Net reading-list this week is The Billy Bob Tapes: A Cave Full Of Ghosts, a tome in which the actor-cum-singer talks about his squirrel-eating Arkansas childhood – wonder if he knows Beth and the rest of the Dittos? – his OCD, ADD and dyslexia, and his five marriages.
“I blew it because I didn’t think I was good enough for her,” he says of wife and subsequent divorce #5 Angelina Jolie. “She has one way she wanted to live her life and I had another way to live mine and I was just too insecure. I did feel like the Phantom Of The Opera hiding in the catacombs. People have actually said that I didn’t deserve to be with her.”
They’re still pals though, with Jolie supplying the foreword and additional input from Robert Duvall, Dwight Yoakam and Daniel Lanois.
Find out more about the book and the new Billly Bob-directed film, Jayne Mansfield’s Car, at billybobthornton.net.
Which just leaves time for quick visits to bit.ly/KIvGyY (molecular cooking for beginners); bit.ly/KgpV0w (models falling on their arses); mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/130875 (10 of the world’s most expensive beers); and tabletop.geekandsundry.com (nerdy but nice).