When the Internets Celebrities cover an event, that event GETS covered. In the fourth video culled from our one-day shoot at the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival, the Internets Celebrities put everyone from the weed carriers to the label owners on tape.
Bless the mic with the god: The Rakim Mash-Up
Damn you Rock The Bells press pass! You fucked up! You got the Internets Celebrites close enough to shoot a visually dope video of Rakim performing My Melody at Rock the Bells 2007 but ensured our audio would be absolutely unusable. The bass literally eats our camera mic, leaving in its wake a horrifyingly distorted audio track and us with half of something great.
So this is the Internets Celebrities solution: Take the great Kid Capri intro, the great streaky video of Rakim on stage and mash it together with the original audio from My Melody off Paid in Full. This sync will not fool you but the moments when it matches up are very satisfying.
Note the guy at the one minute mark who says “Fuck You” when we turn and film the crowd. He is now an Internets Celebrity.
Internets Celebrities ROCKed THE BELLS
Stop being racist, internets.
White hip-hop fans may be funny looking but they support Wu-Tang, share their weed and provide great entertainment in the form of mud-wrestling. And black guys do like Rage Against the Machine.
On June 29, 2007 the Internets Celebrities visited the amazing Rock the Bells festival on Randall’s Island in New York.
Dallas and Rafi mix it up with the crowd, check the scene by the port-a-potties and catch a performance from the god mc Rakim.
Free Shit
How to score free stuff at public events and impress virtually no one.
YOU’RE ON THE LIST: How to attend an Outdoor Concert Internets Celebrities Style
The Internets Celebrities are first and foremost bringers of knowledge. Having braved the unforgiving sun, the entrapping police and the paranoia-inducing contact highs of the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival, The ICs here go through the DOs and the DON’Ts of successful outdoor concert going. Taped at the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival in mid-June, this video speaks to all genres of outdoor summer concerts. Take the knowledge supplied here and apply it to an Incubus show in upstate New York, a Boston Philharmonic music festival on Cape Cod, a Cypress Hill summerstage show or any outdoor event where the food is overpriced and the undercovers are trying to get you to buy weed from them.
DO: Watch this video and learn from it.
DON’T: Hold your deuce in.
The Internets Celebrities are Dallas Penn and Rafi Kam
Directed by Casimir Nozkowski
Cinematography/Audio by Ian Savage
Edited by Terrence Elenteny
What Is An iNternets Celebrity?
Several people have asked me exactly what is an iNternets Celebrity? In this age of meta celebrity we find that people can be famous for whatever it is that they do well. Paris Hilton spends her parents money and often gets caught for driving drunk. Paris Hilton is a DUI Celebrity.
One of the excellent things about celebrity status is that it is easily commutable. One person can exist in various states of celebrity throughout their lifetime. Bobby Brown was once an accomplished rythym and blues balladeer, but now he is more famous for smoking freebase. Almost overnite he went from an R & B Celebrity into a Crack Fiend Celebrity.
In the case of iNternets Celebrities, there are millions of us, living in our parents basements, and placing ‘Do Not Touch’ labels on our containers of orange pineapple juice in the old folks’ refrigerators. Our porn collections are detailed and immense and most of us care enough about conserving energy that we shower only once a week.
I know what you’re thinking… This guy isn’t a celebrity, he’s actually a homeless bum. Well you’d be wrong about that because even the homeless have celeb status. It’s called Celebrities Without Windows.
Peep this video from fellow internets celebrity Mr. Pregnant as he explains in great detail what it means to be an iNternets Celebrity.
Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival Mixtape
The Internets Celebrities Mixtape is a new feature we’re going to be rolling out at InternetsCelebrities.com. Think of it as a video sampler, a pu pu platter of visuality, a cultural collage for viewing.
Essentially, we wanted to be able to make videos that offered a more raw look at cultural events the Internets Celebrities were attending while not worrying so much about unifying themes. In other words, we shot a lot of footage worth seeing at the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival and just wanted to get it out there posthaste.
In the true Mixtape aesthetic, what it lacks in polish and nuance, it makes up for in timeliness and gruff enthusiasm. Look out for other IC Mixtapes coming soon. We’re going to be attending a lot of summer events and the Mixtapes will help us do them justice.
At the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival, we chop it up with Saigon, Sean Price, Emily King and catch performances from Dres, Price, Jeru and Ghostface.
More Festival video coming soon.
Real Talk with MC Hammer!
There were a few long interviews we did at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival that were filled with good stuff but just didn’t fit the 4 minute video a day format that we’d agreed to with The Daily Reel. So the Internets Celebs site is the perfect place to unveil them. We already showed you our interview with independent filmmakers and savvy web marketers Four Eyed Monsters. Today we cover our interview with rap’s first crossover superstar, MC Hammer. Hopefully we can also put together something soon from the talk we had with Sopranos actor turned Sundance filmmaker Louis Lombardi. Stay tuned…
Probably the greatest celebrity opening in the entire Sundance series is MC Hammer’s exhilarating and unprompted “It’s Hammer Time!” that kicks off The Filmmakers episode. Our unexpected meeting with Hammer was a definite highlight of the whole trip.
As the only peron on our team without a laptop, I was doing my usual early morning Internets addiction thing at the AOL Cyber Lounge across the street from our hotel. Suddenly I heard a gruff, familiar voice talking to some of the staff people there. I approached Hammer, told him what we were all about and asked if he’d be willing to do an Internets Celebrities interview. He was willing so I called Cas and Dallas, both of whom were sleeping as this all went down about 8am, and had them rush over to shoot an unscripted, unplanned chat with Hammer.
We discussed the repercussions of the RIAA raid on DJ Drama that had happened that week and what it revealed about the music industry. Hammer also clued us in on his long-time involvement in the spheres of film (from the 2 Legit days to financing the debut film of director Justin Lin) and Internet media. Hammer was an extremely generous interview subject – open and intelligent – and I must say we were uniquely suited to join him in a discussion of any of these channels from hip-hop to film to internets. We are the impresarios of improvising. We bring the right words to ad libs like a book of Mad Libs. And all that….
But just to show it doesn’t always come so naturally (in case watching me in this interview fidget around wishing I had a chair doesn’t reveal that), let me take you inside my head for a minute. When we were just getting set to start the interview I asked myself “what would my OhWord audience want me to ask?” The reply: “Ask him about the story MC Serch has been telling that Hammer had a hit out on him back in the day!” And I’m holding on to that question, with the White Rapper show popping off at the time I have a good enough segue to use. But as the interview goes on I get this feeling about what a genuine guy we’re chopping it up with. I start to feel like I would be a total creep to betray Hammer’s trust and breech a negative topic that may or may not have happened nearly twenty years earlier and has nothing to do with the moment.
I’m glad I didn’t go there and I’m glad I met the legendary MC Hammer, a self-made man who has been the brunt of many disses and jokes and yet radiates goodwill and extreme focus.
By the way you can check out Hammer’s blog which gives you a glimpse into his life but also touches on music, politics and technology.
Real Talk with MC Hammer – Part 1
Real Talk with MC Hammer – Part 2
Rooftop Films Recap
This past Friday, Internets Celebrities were in full effect at the Rooftop Films screening of Bodega in their New York Non-Fiction night. The response was huge – lots of applause and the biggest laughs we heard all night (okay there weren’t that many comedies in the lineup but we’ll take it). It was gratifying and even thrilling to sit among a crowd of 500 people enjoying our work.
The opening act was young emcee from Yonkers named Loer Velocity. Coincidentally Loer did a song with his very low-key hypeman Donnan Linkz called “The Hood Diet”. The subject matter was perfect with Bodega coming up.
There were a lot of good films that night. Highlights included: The Guarantee by Jesse Epstein, Bongo Barbershop by Charlie Ahearn, A Son’s Sacrifice by Yoni Brook and Toxic Brooklyn by vbs.tv
Afterwards we had a chance to speak to Wild Style director Ahearn who approached us shouting “Bo-De-Ga!”, announcing himself as a fan.
Cue Zoro’s brother “Is this being an Internets Celebrity what you’re gonna do with your life? Stop fucking around and be a man already. There ain’t nothing out here for you.”
Oh yes there is.
By the way you can catch Ahearn and Wild Style for free this coming Friday June 22 as part of the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival. And the big concert is Saturday June 23. The IC’s will be representing at both events.
Interview of Four Eyed Monsters at Sundance
Four Eyed Monsters Interview – Part 1
Four Eyed Monsters Interview – Part 2
Internets Celebrities meet Internets Celebrities.
One of the highlights of our trip to Sundance was having a chance to talk with Susan and Arin who together comprise the film-making team Four Eyed Monsters. The duo had a movie at Slamdance a few years earlier but were shocked at how little that was helping the film get distributed. So they created a video blog via ITunes and MySpace and developed a following in that way.
Four Eyed Monsters are trailblazers in that they showed how indie filmmakers can create their own distribution channels and have great success cultivating their own audience. Their success online led to audience-demanded screenings across the country. Most recently Susan and Arin partnered up with YouTube and their movie became the first feature length video at YouTube.
But when we first found them they were in a jacuzzi surrounded by a crew of similarly pale indie filmmakers. This was no standard Hollywood hot tub party. This was Utah – there was frost on the deck of the pool! Instead of snorting lines and discussing Scientology, these guys were having a panel about how new media is changing filmmaking and film distribution. Arin with his voice recorder stood in the center of the hot tub leaning over people or passing the device around to capture the forum for posterity.
Immediately afterwards we had a chance to do a rare serious unscripted interview with Four Eyed Monsters. Ian was with us that evening and he was already a big fan of their work so he quickly got us familiar.
We hope you enjoy this interview with two bright, passionate evangelists of the Internets.
For more on Slamdance, check out Internets Celebrities at Sundance episode 5 – the Filmmakers
For a glimpse of the jacuzzi party, check out Internets Celebrities at Sundance episode 6 – the Parties
