Joey Grihalva stared ahead helplessly as the driver of the tie-dyed school bus parked outside of his Minneapolis home glared at him impatiently. He had rented a party bus ? the frigate of bumbling drunken fools looking to kill a few brain cells and impress friends ? and invited some buddies from his hometown of Milwaukee. Grihalva asked the driver for more time, but found the task of collecting the 30 or so people needed to finance the bus more hopeless than before. A few revelers swayed listlessly to dance tracks in his living room, while others moaned and grunted in his darkened basement, and many more were nowhere to be found.
Of course, there is a lesson be learned here: Don’t plan on an all-night party and start drinking at 10 a.m. But producer Joey Grihalva had a more pressing problem ? the giant, pissed-off bus driver who had come out late on homecoming Saturday looking for a payday. Grihalva looks like an unassuming white guy (OK, quarter Ecuadorian) from the Midwest, but he knows what the core of hip-hop culture is all about ? improvisation. Just ask how he assembled the set for the first episode of his hip-hop variety show ?Don’t Believe the Hype.?
?This hotel was giving away tons of nasty boxy TVs, so I had ’em tagged up by a graffiti writer,? said Grihalva, a senior at the University of Minnesota. ?So the idea was to have images or videos play in that TV next to them. I had everything ready to satisfy that, but I forgot to bring a remote control for the VCR.?
Instead, ?Don’t Believe the Hype? anchors Tramon Van Leer and Dez Jones sit juxtaposed against staticky antique TVs that inadvertently work as a cultural commentary: All traditional television has to offer is the same old mindless noise.
The show itself (available for free at DontBelievetheHype.tv) is a 30-odd minute seamless blend of local color and national hip-hop news. Most impressive are the segments filmed off-site that capture everything the media always misses about the hip-hop community: the close-knit groups of local intellectuals, volunteerism and a fervent dedication to art.
?I had pulled two all-nighters earlier that week,? Grihalva said, describing the challenges of filming the first episode. ?And Sunday night I had stayed overnight at my day job trying to edit the scenes we recorded before.?
Indeed, ?Don’t Believe the Hype? embodies the intangible grittiness that defines hip-hop’s underground. The show offers a rare glimpse into what makes hip-hop tick, removing the aura of nefarious intrigue that pervades MTV, BET and the national press. Think an upstart indie band’s tour schedule combined with round-the-clock community organizing. Still, the legendary demeanor of the true hip-hopper bubbles to the surface.
?There was a faulty report from (cough) racist-ass (cough) Fox News that Def Jam heads wouldn’t put out the album,? co-anchor Van Leer said of the controversial proposed title of the new Nas LP.
After a few minutes of silent reflection and cursing, Grihalva collected whatever money he could from friends, handed the crumpled bills to the driver and asked him to leave. Of course, he pled for more money, but the driver would have to make do with what he could get ? a situation Grihalva has found all-too-common in his own work.
?Don’t Believe the Hype? is filmed in the university studio where Grihalva works. So, when filming for the first episode went into overtime, the paid staff went home, and it became a one-man show backstage. Grihalva ran the prompter, cued the audio and graphics, and generally did the work of a half-dozen professionals.
?We got done shooting at 11; me and Tramon [Van Leer] stay there to take down the set because the studio has very little storage space,? Grihalva said. ?We’re tired at that point, so we go smoke a bowl and come back and take down the set. ? It was really heavy.?
The Milwaukee native has made quick work of embedding himself in the Minneapolis hip-hop scene and is the manager for instrumental hip-hop outfit The Hotbox. While the show wouldn’t have been possible without his exodus, Milwaukee’s failure to retain its innovative artistic minds like Grihalva has contributed to the degeneration of its inner-city culture. Aspiring rappers may have a skate shop or two to sell their wares and maybe a bar owner sympathetic to hip-hop acts, despite Milwaukee’s notorious murder rate, but that?s it. For rappers who aren’t well-connected, the city has become a cultural wasteland.
?Right now there a lot of people rapping, but not a lot of events that bring people together,? Grihalva said of his hometown. ?People are rapping, but they’re doing it on their own.?
Minneapolis, on the other hand, boasts one of the nation?s most involved hip-hop communities. Of course, its most notable indie offering is Atmosphere, but there’s a new crop of underground bangers waiting to be discovered by the monolithic national music media. Unless their ringtones can go platinum, MTV and the other corporate sales fronts probably won’t give a damn. And that’s where ?Don’t Believe the Hype? comes in.
The Internet show maintains an unrelenting focus on the positive aspects of hip-hop culture and concludes with a local musical act reminiscent of “Chappelle Show” performances. If Grihalva and the rest of the ?Don’t Believe the Hype? staff don’t waver in their dedication and expand the show’s investigative reporting, there’s no reason the fledgling project won’t become an underground sensation.
The website is now accepting votes for its 2007 Don?t Believe the Hype Awards and is adding a live DJ to its news studio. Small steps, to be sure, but at least someone remembers how this whole hip-hop thing started in the first place.
Bassey Etim is a senior majoring in political science and journalism. If you have any hot leads on underground music acts or productions for The Urban Correspondent shoot him an e-mail at [email protected].
