COUNTING THE MINUTES
TWO FRENCHMEN CAPTURE THE NYC RAP RACE
words: Craig Rogers (Cool’eh magazine)

There is something electric in the relationship between France and America. Perhaps it began in the lifeline France threw those rebellious colonists during the Revolutionary War. It certainly was in effect after in the early 20th Century, when African-Americans fled the stifling racism of their home to breathe freely for the first time in Paris. Fast-forward a couple decades and America is liberating France from the Nazis, keep going and Paris is handing us the deed and title to a nasty little guerilla war in a place called Vietnam. When Americans were ignoring future jazz greats, it was the French who kept them fed. Whatever the reason, there is something about the American spirit which only a Frenchman can parse. It is no accident that almost 200 years later, Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy In America is still considered a seminal work on America in it’s infancy.

The creative partnership of Nico Venancio and Math Rochet, collectively know as Gasface, is merely the latest example of this long tradition. New York Minute is a six-part series of short films documenting an eclectic selection of hip-hop artists past and present that is simple,unvarnished, and mesmerizing. Whether the trick is in the stories they choose to tell, or just in how they tell them, there is an undeniable freshness to their eye that leaps off the screen. Or maybe it’s that sometimes, in order to really see yourself, you need someone else to hold the mirror

What was the idea behind the New York Minute series?
Nico Venancio: We chose the expression “New York minute” as a narrative key; it’s the DNA of Gotham, a part of U.S. popular culture which is not very well known in Europe. Being fans of what HBO brought to the table with their “series” or “miniseries,” we chose this kind of format to drop a gem. Our thing was to let the city breathe…
Math Rochet: To show a New York we’ve never seen in any film or documentary. Document not just rap, but also where people come from, how they live.cause everyday here is a matter of life or death, making it or falling face down. Anything can happen in a New York minute and we felt that urge too, like f I only had one shot at making documentaries, that’d be the one. The creative team is us two, Gasface. We’ve been our own media for almost ten years now, doing magazines, producing live shows, doing mixtapes, etc. but that was our first time behind a camera.

How much time did you spend in the States to get this done? Where did you go?
Math: There’s been a lot of trips to NYC over the years; we used to do our own magazine (named Gasface, too), interviewing guys like Prodigy, Buckwild, Ghostface. It’s always been more about New York, its culture, than rap itself, so we’d also meet cats like bank robber Chaz Williams, or Sugarhill’s Azie…We’ve always met dudes where they live or work, so that’d count as preparation for New York Minute…As far as shooting, all has been done in 20 days.
Nico: You can laugh that, the only other US city I know is…Mount Vernoun.

Mount Vernon? How odd, do tell…
It’s the location of producer Buckwild’s batcave. Keep the secret!

What was your introduction to hip-hop?
Nico: Rap has always been in the background since high school years but I was really impressed when the maniac, lunatic, Snoop Eastwood came in the game.
Math: A grey tape with “Raising Hell” handwritten on it. My big brother brought it from school when I was 11. I was into heavy metal before that, and “You Be Illin’” changed my life, like for the first time I felt I was really loving something, not just enjoying it.

What is Arte.tv?
Math: Arte is a French German network created in the early 90’s, because of a political will to build common culture between two countries that had been enemies for a long time. Being heavily involved in production, Arte has done a lot for cinema, and now it’s leading the way as far as producing proper content for the web. In Germany, New York Minute has been the most successful program the French branch ever did, so it’s a good feeling too, when you know why the network was founded.

How did you guys end up working with them?
Math: Thanks to our “5ft” issue, the one with Prodigy on the cover. A guy bought a copy and brought it back to his workplace (in Arte‘s French HQ) read it out loud in a conference room, which triggered a raging boner epidemic.
Nico: Gasface magazine was our demo tape and Arte.tv, our first major deal.

How did you go about selecting your subjects?
Nico: We work like a jazz combo; some stuff were arranged but must of our music was improvised, created spontaneously.
Math: We had a bunch of subjects ready before filming, but some guys, like Azie, went Swayze. Others had schedule issues, or happened to be boring to deal with, so some new subjects had to be brought up. “The Midnight Marauder” came in real late; halfway into the shooting: we just bumped into this guy, had a little conversation about his doing here, and five seconds later the camera was rolling. Same thing with the Junkyard, we were supposed to meet someone at the Mets stadium. We didn’t, but we found that spot we’ve never heard about. The G-Dep episode wasn’t scheduled as well; we wrote a pitch two years ago, tried to reach him, but his manager asked for money, so we gave the usual ‘clic’ answer. But three days into the shooting, we felt like trying one last time, through a different channel, and boom, we were on Boston Road the same night. On the other hand, the Joell Ortiz episode was one the first we’ve thought about. We first hooked up three or four years ago, and he and his guy Dennis were really cool, easy-going dudes. They showed us their part of the city, even gave us a Queensbridge tour (!), gave us access to their studio, etc. We knew Mike Heron by reputation, so we had not just one dope MC, but 3 grown-ups on the grind, with an interesting relationship going on. Early on, that episode was our take on the rap game as we saw it. A collective grind.

That Midnight Marauders piece was really interesting, give me more detail on how that happened.
Math: It happened randomly, during the second week of shooting. We thought S’barro was nice because of the Fat Boys, so we went to Times Square’s. It was awful, the worst meal of the whole trip. We got out quick and bumped into this dude Squala. He sold two CD’s to our sound guy, who didn’t need those at all, so we were intrigued by him, his grind. That’s a guy who spend his whole life in a place – the center of our civilization – where the whole world just passes by. Everybody has been here, walked by, but this guy is the only one staying, plus he’s working here, right under Puff living the good life in a huge ad. This guy is dreaming of a way out in a place with 24/7 daylight. We starting shooting right away, hooked up a couple of days later in the Bronx, where he records, been to his office, even his home in BK (but we didn’t use that footage,it didn’t feel right, also it was daytime)
We spend a lot of time on the Deuce, always at night, observing, chilling. Nico simply hooked up with old dude, the mayor, by talking with him. Both told us about the recent death of Ready, another rapper pushing his own production, killed by a plainclothes cop from a taskforce working on CD pushers.
The Deuce was pimps and dope, now you can’t even sell your own CD’s. That’s today’s NY, in a place everybody knows (from movies or vacations), so we had to start here.

Tell me about Gasface Magazine; what was it, how did it progress and why don’t you do it anymore? What about the live shows, and other aspects?
Math: We came up with a black and white fanzine in 2002, which had a nice reception from the jump, even though we knew nothing about this trade, or writing, or interviewing. For our first issue, we brought the print worker a CD with 37 pages, we didn’t even realize you’re supposed to bring in even numbers of pages. Anyway, our magazine was labelled “100% real motherfucker: only real live interviews, no phone, no mail, no text messages Q&A’s,”so there was already a hint that we’d gonna be soaring like eagles one day. That issue had cats like Madlib, Cannibal Ox in it, the next one had Flavor Flav, Murs, De La Soul, Capleton. The third DJ Premier, Roy Ayers, Raekwon, Fred Wesley (of JB’s fame), Large Pro, and the late J Dilla. We used to sell those in records shops and streetwear joints in France and Switzerland, the distributor being ourselves.
Then we booked shows in our city, Lyons, that was lacking of such, so we did parties on this big boat. The first one, with DJ Babu and Rakaa sound system style, was fire, about 100 people didn’t make it inside, so we kept going and booked shows with Jeru, DJ Revolution, Ge-Ology, Greg Nice. We had a “no suckers onstage” policy. We had seen too many half-ass shows with US MCs drinking onstage and not sweating one drop, so we decided to only book the dudes we’d seen perform before and considered dope (we used to travel a lot to see shows and make interviews).We did the first OC show in France, and that was a proud moment. Our last one featured Sadat X. We’d printed flyers and posters, booked the venue then read on Nahright a month before the show that he just got arrested for pulling out a gun in Harlem, so that wasn’t fun. But he found a good lawyer, posted bail, made it to the show, and rocked that boat! That was January 2006, and even though it was fun, we could only put 10% of our potential in these ventures, we kinda felt like anyone could book shows, but only us could do the Gasface magazine, so this time we took the show money we stacked and put it in a real color magazine, 96 pages. We made a deal with France’s biggest distributor and hit the stands nationwide. This time our goal was clearer, doing to rap what others did with rock and write about the culture’s culture, not only hip-hop, but also soul music, funk, movies, and books we considered our world. For example, we’ve interviewed director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) or author George Pelecanos, even threw a party for him, on a platform ship (we needed a bigger boat!), as he was invited in our city by a literature festival we worked with as a communication agency.
Nico: Gasface magazine only lasted two years (between 2006 and 2008) and six issues and quickly gained cult status. Our last issue was banned due to a nationwide controversy on our “White” issue.

What was the “White” issue, and how did it get you get banned?
Nico: We did an all-white issue, with this title, « They’re bad dancers! They’re mean! They’re everywhere!!! Even Barack Obama is half one of them… Should we be scared of those white mothefuckers? »
Math: Obviously we just were being funny, but the news vendors union thought we were black or Arab dudes dissing white folks, promoting hate, etc. They launched a huge boycott, which was illegal because the press is free. They even tried to get the government ban us for good, legally, but they couldn’t get it, for obvious reasons. Anyway, they maintain their boycott, so our sales got hurt. Every magazine and newspaper in France rooted for us, talked about us, but that didn’t change the fact that the magazine wasn’t in the stands, even though we did spend huge money to get distributed, for no result, and with no possible appeal.
Anyway, this issue is a classic piece. We had Alchemist, Greg Errico, the white drummer of the Family Stone, Average White Band, Scott Leemon, Busta (Rhymes), G-Unit’s lawyer, white ball players, singers, rappers. We even talked with Chris Tucker for a special file about buddy movies!

Why is there often a divide between rap that is popular in Europe and rap that is popular here. What do you think accounts for it?
Math: Before Internet, the difference was bigger maybe. The French used to kinda despise commercial acts, now things are more levelled. Underground music is as accessible as mainstream stuff, so there’s no point in calling it “underground” anymore, you don’t dig shit, you simply click like that moron who said he got AIDS listening to Fergie. For the past decade, people just had to compare stuff, and often they got to the conclusion Timbaland had better beats than a-stuck-in-the-90’s producer.
A good thing about Europe, though, is that we care more about the legacy, the long-term run. I feel like the US audience goes more for the hype, the guy (or the girl) that’s hot, but I’m not sure people will bump a lot of Nicki Minaj in 20 years, whereas Pete Rock and Q-Tip will be booked here and in Japan forever.
Nico: We care about that auteur approach, in that sense we want to keep it “Old Europe.”

Your aesthetic is very distinctive, when you are working on something like this, what is it that you are going for? How do you describe your style?
It’s our secret, never teach the Wu-Tang! Seriously, that was our first experience with cameras, we had 20 days, two 7D’s rollin’ all the time, a lot of excitement, and very little sleep. At some point, NYC just took possession of us… Nico and I just tried to keep our heads clear, we had some talks in the morning before the rest of the team woke up, and we tried to be frank with ourselves. Some stories that were half shot got dropped in ten seconds because we didn’t feel 100% about their completion or them being really tight. For example, we’ve started a story with 13 year-old baller from the Bronx, another one with a video vixen, a couple of other stories. Time was the least our of resources, really.
During editing, the main thing (style-wise) was to fuck with time perception, to distort the passing of time, cause that’s what the New York minute feels like in our eyes.
I don’t know how to call our style, but we did label our magazine « a scientific journal dedicated to love and truth. » Also we’re French, so that must count for something, that’s the country of the Nouvelle Vague: these cats would worship film-makers like John Ford as masters when Westerns were considered a weak genre in the US. When you think about it, that’s almost what we’re doing with rap; consider great something we know has flaws, see « wonders » when others just see « bad taste. »

What’s next for you and Arte.TV and is this the end of the New York Minute series?
Nico: We’re the creative tag team; Arte is a manufacturer and marketer. I don’t know what’s next for them but I’m quite sure they’ll do a diet version or vanilla formula of what they currently do.
Math: Well, we’re not attached to Arte, that was a one-time deal… The 6-part miniseries is over, but life goes on, and since we’re angels of love, and love is life, we go on with a new concept called “Where I’m From”, with cats like Ego Trip‘s Sacha Jenkins, Brent Rollins, Method Man, and others… Also we’re cooking other NY-related things in the live-show area, with dope visuals and a new type of sounds we’ve designed with our tools de luxe and our French savoir-faire. So stay tuned.

Original version

original version