Author Topic: The Porn/Hip-Hop Synthesis  (Read 1771 times)

Myrealname

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The Porn/Hip-Hop Synthesis
« on: September 30, 2002, 08:56:11 AM »
CHATSWORTH, Calif. - Hip-hop flirts with porn in raunchy music videos and sold-out arenas, unifying a generation with street savvy lyrics and pushing limits with its X-rated edge.  
   Now it’s going XXX-rated as a growing number of hardcore rap superstars are starting to host hardcore adult videos.
   Movers and shakers in both multi-billion-dollar industries say it’s a natural merger, one which appeals to a huge consumer demographic and as a result, has racked up big numbers and big bucks for Hustler Video and has the potential to do the same for other porn producers.
    "I just think it’s a perfect marriage, as far as good music with good sex," says multi platinum-selling rapper Snoop Dogg, whose smash hit video for Hustler, Doggystyle, is a high water mark in the porn/hip-hop movement. "It all needs each other so it’s a good thing it’s actually happening."
   While Snoop Dogg wasn’t the first rapper to make porn - DJ Yella of N.W.A. has been producing it since the mid-1990s - Doggystyle, more than any other porn/hip-hop synthesis, awakened the adult industry to the immense commercial possibilities of the genre. The tape, Snoop’s first collaboration with Hustler Video, in which he introduces the sex scenes but doesn’t have sex on camera, has sold more than 150,000 units worldwide, garnering AVN’s Top Selling Tape of 2001 Award in January.
    "I think this thing could get real big," Snoop, who electrified the AVN Awards Show when he appeared on stage to accept the Award, tells AVN. "It could turn into a big market for both parties. It’s a great movement."
   And it’s only started to take off.
   Hip-hop videos regularly feature porn stars such as Jenna Jameson in Eminem’s Without Me and India in Ja Rule’s Livin’ It Up. Jill Kelly Productions’ contract girls attended the 2001 Cypress Hill Smokeout, an outdoor hip-hop/rock concert, where they introduced acts such as Busta Rhymes, Redman and Method Man, and signed autographs at the JKP booth.
   Hip-hop/porn parties have started popping up in places like West Hollywood, where adult performers/directors Mr. Marcus and Max Hardcore joined forces with promoter Marcus Smith earlier in the year to host two editions of The Addiction Lounge nightclub, featuring adult and music luminaries and live rap performances.
   And perhaps most significantly, largely due to the success of Doggystyle, more and more rappers are appearing in porn videos with no fear of alienating fans.  
    "If that’s what you want to do you shouldn’t care about what other people think," says India, a contract girl at ethnic adult producer Video Team and also an up-and-coming hip-hop artist. "Sex will never die out. It will always be in. It’s not like a fad."
   India is working on her first album, which has yet to be titled, but which includes songs such as Preference, Ride By, Let It Go and Threesome.
    "I’m not [rapping about] sex all the time. I try to talk about issues," India says. "I think where porn plays a part, it kind of helps that I already have a fan base. I already have people that will buy it. ... If you look at it, everybody is influenced by sex. Sex sells. Lil’ Kim and Trina, they talk about things I do already."
   The sexy rapper and singer performed in adult videos from 1997-2000 before taking a year’s leave of absence and returning in 2001. She has danced in music videos for some of the biggest names in hip-hop including Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige and DJ Quik.
    "I’m really concentrating on my music. I don’t want to leave, but I’m doing less porn," says India, who performed sex in Doggystyle and its much-anticipated sequel HUSTLAZ, Diary of a Pimp, scheduled to be released Sept. 17.
   India is not the only adult star pursuing hip-hop music. Former Vivid girl Heather Hunter is working on a solo album titled Double H, and is featured on rapper Noreaga’s record Big D with Akinyele.
   On the other side of the equation, rapper Chaos is trying her hand (and pussy) at porn, performing a hardcore scene in Liquid City, produced for Hustler Video by New Orleans-based Inner City Squad, and at press time, set for an August release. Chart-topping rapper Mystikal hosted the video that takes viewers behind the scenes of Chaos’ album release party. In the tape, Chaos performs the exclusive song In Da City with Mystikal in a live concert setting, steps off the stage and goes directly into her sex scene with John E. Depth.  
    "I still had the adrenaline going. I was real hyped-up, anxious and nervous at the same time," Chaos says. "That’s the way I wanted to do it. I didn’t want it to be so structured. ... I just felt that raw energy that was in the room."
   Chaos made her hardcore video debut with Mr. Marcus in the Hustler/Inner City Squad release Ghetto Booty, one of Hustler’s best-selling series that comes packaged with a hip-hop soundtrack CD. Inner City Squad member D. Sparky, a director and music producer who also shoots Hustler’s hip-hop themed Black & Wild line, tells AVN that the Squad started successfully packaging hip-hop soundtrack CDs with its independently produced porn several years ago.
   The hip-hop/adult genre is "so hot down south on the street in terms of just the porn," Sparky says. "... We were moving a lot of pieces, 4,000, 5,000 independently at nothing less than $20 each."
   The hip-hop invasion is so prevalent that Mr. Marcus performed in three different hip-hop/porn videos during a three-week span in July, shooting scenes for Ice-T, Too Short and Snoop Dogg’s sequel.
    "You’re fucking your ass off and you look up and there’s Too Short. That’s when you know you’ve made it," Mr. Marcus jokes.
   The eight-year porn veteran also delivered a scene in HUSTLAZ, Diary of a Pimp and will be featured in Sex and the Studio, a Metro Studios release that was produced, directed and hosted by Digital Underground.
   When he’s not performing, there is a good chance Mr. Marcus is rapping. He did a song two years ago with Redman and Method Man and he is now writing raps for a new series he hopes to produce called Mr. Marcus’ Fucking Neighborhood.
    "I’m still a fan of Snoop Dogg. I’m still a fan of Xzibit. I’m still a fan of Too Short. If anything, they don’t have to do this. But it’s strictly for the love of two things: money and sex," Mr. Marcus says. "The reason I do what I do is strictly for the money and the sex."
    "I’ve seen them all," he adds, "but one thing they can’t do is they’re not willing to perform" in sex scenes because of the porn stigma. "That’s the only barrier. They can’t take their clothes off."  
   Treach, the front man for Naughty By Nature, actually did disrobe for a three-way with Obsession and Sinnamon in the Mojo Home Video/Bedbugs Films release Treach’s Naturally Naughty Porno Movie. But the edit of Treach’s scene was softcore. Suave, a friend of the rapper who directed the video and also performed in it, says Treach originally did the scene as a favor to generate traffic for Suave’s new Website, www.esexchannel.com.
    "They’re not trying to be porn stars," Suave says. "They’re just trying to show people that ‘We get freaky, too.’ The fans know what’s going on. These aren’t gospel singers. These are rap stars. It’s the music industry. It’s sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll and now it’s rap. They all coincide."
   Aaron Gordon, president of Mojo Home Video, didn’t have to think twice when Suave approached him about the Treach video. Mojo released the title on April 23 to coincide with the street date of Naughty By Nature’s new album Iicons .
    "I think porn has become so mainstream," Gordon says. "And if you look at the Billboard charts, a lot of the stuff at the top is all hip-hop. So it’s two great markets fusing together."
   
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 04:00:00 PM by 1034398800 »
 

Myrealname

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Re: The Porn/Hip-Hop Synthesis
« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2002, 08:56:25 AM »
Gordon tells AVN that Treach’s Naturally Naughty Porno Movie sold well over 5,000 units on VHS and DVD, but it has not generated the re-orders for which he hoped because Treach doesn’t show his privates. The tape’s Website, www.treach-porn-movie.com, still averages 300 visitors a day, Gordon says.
    "It’s still selling okay," Gordon notes. "When you can mix the two worlds, mainstream and adult, it’s a winning proposition. The adult buyer is a unique niche of a buyer. I recognize any time you can put a mainstream person, somebody who has success and fame, in an adult video, it’s a guaranteed winner.
    "You could have a horrible selling album but it would still sell 50,000. But if an adult video sells 30,000, it’s incredible. Distributors and stores are looking for things that have crossover appeal, a curiosity to it. They’re choosing from 250 new titles a week."
   Digital Underground appears to have found a unique concept with Sex and the Studio, which is set for release this month. Money B. and Shock G. host the tape, while Clee directed what Digital Underground and Metro Studios have dubbed an "adult music video magazine. The first edition of the series features interviews with Snoop Dogg, Naughty By Nature, De La Soul, Warren G., The Luniz, Dru Down, B-Legit, C-Bo, Truth Hurts and Ras Kass. It also includes an interview with Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Snoop Minnis in addition to music videos and hardcore sex performed by primarily ethnic adult actors and actresses.  
   Metro General Manager Sam Nelson says there also will be an R-rated version for the record stores.
    "Porn stars, rappers and groupies all in one tape," Nelson says. "We’ve had interest from a lot of mainstream stores already. I don’t think anybody’s ever done anything like this before. Hustler had Snoop Dogg, but that was totally different. These guys go to concerts. They were at the Naughty By Nature concert, interviewing them there, talking about sex on the tape. They interviewed Snoop Dogg. He talked about where he lost his virginity."
   Money B. tells AVN the series could evolve into a variety show similar to an adult Saturday Night Live with hip-hop celebrities.
    "It’s about their sex life and their opinions," B. says. "We travel. We get out on the streets. We go to clubs and parties and we just talk to people. The whole vibe is not only do you get interviews with all these famous celebrities, you actually get to hang with us at places and parties that we go to and just vibe with the people that are there.
    "... All of our shows end up turning into a freak fest anyway. We want to be sex ambassadors for hip-hop, take it to the next level."
   Digital Underground and Metro threw a private Sex and the Studio party on June 22 with porn stars and hip-hop personalities. A few of the performers in the debut episode include Obsession, India, Lacey, Caramel and Naomi Arman. Metro will package a CD with the DVD that includes previously unreleased tracks from some of the artists.
    "Sex and the Studio is an adult music video magazine but it’s not just hip-hop," Clee says. "We’re going to cover all kinds of music, the music industry itself. Entertainment."
   In addition to helping mainstream adult products, hip-hop artists reach a multi-cultural audience. Kid Frost, known as the "Godfather of Latin rap," is preparing to release his first adult video called Still Up in This XXX through Amor Films this month. The video is based on the title of his seventh album, Still Up in This, which came out in May and had sold 70,000 copies by late July. Frost calls it "the first Latin low-rider hip-hop porno that is based on the Chicano lifestyle."
   Kid Frost produced and directed Still Up in This XXX, which he says depicts a day in his life filled with "doe, hoes and hydros (low-riders)." Like his fellow rap-porners, Frost doesn’t have sex in the tape, preferring to have such performers as Alexis Amore do that for him.
    "I jumped in the water to the left of the pool," Frost says. "... I’ve been wanting to do this forever. I’m in this to be one of the ones that’s known in the industry.
    "I’ve seen porn. I’ve been watching it my whole life and what we did has not been done. We tailor-make the instrumental beats."
   Frost, a native of East L.A. who has sold over 3 1/2 million records since the 1990 hit La Raza made him a star, says he has ideas for several more titles including an all-oral line called Cum Smugglers. He says his lifestyle rivals what happens in porn so he might as well put it on video.
    "Rappers have talked about pussy and getting laid more than any other genre of music," Frost says. "It’s simple arithmetic. Turn on BET and MTV and you see half-naked girls in miniskirts. Everybody wants that lifestyle. What do you think we’re doing after the show? We’re pulling strippers and bad girls back to the room. What you see in porn, I laugh because if you see my lifestyle... I get on the mic and I pull bitches."
   Danny Rodriguez, director of production and distribution for Amor Films, says Kid Frost has been so involved in the promotional effort for the tape he even performed at the VSDA Home Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas in July, rapping at a seminar for how to market to young Latinos.
   The rapper, whose production company is called Interstate 101 Films, says he sends out "street teams" with thousands of fliers promoting the video and also spreads the word through guest spots on L.A. radio stations.
    "It (Still Up in This XXX) has turned into a monster," Rodriguez says. "Everyone has heard about it. The production quality is high. There are 11 X-rated videos and six sex scenes."
   He says hip-hop is not confined to the black or Latino markets, noting that Kid Frost has a huge following as far away as Japan.
    "I wouldn’t narrow it to minorities anymore," Rodriguez says. "Forty to 50 percent of the hip-hop sales are coming out of young white people."
   Another adult company, West Coast Productions, has also jumped on the porn/hip-hop bandwagon, last year releasing the appropriately titled Hip-Hop & Porn Stars, which was produced in association with Ghetto Sex Productions. The video features director/performer Wesley Pipes hanging with rappers Dru Down and MC Eiht in the studio in between sex scenes performed by professional porners. WCP general manager Terry Burton tells AVN the video continues to sell.
    "Both industries are always pushing the envelope," Burton says. "I don’t think you have to be a scientist to see there is a connection."
   Digital Underground’s Money B. offered a simple theory on the hip-hop/porn phenomenon.
    "All musicians want to be athletes or porn stars," B. says. "All athletes want to be musicians and porn stars, and all porn stars want to be athletes and musicians.
    "It’s all entertainment. And I guess once you realize that you have the ability to entertain, I don’t think there’s no limit to it."
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 04:00:00 PM by 1034398800 »