TWO BRAND NEW REVIEWS OF GRAFFITI VERITE' 5: THE SACRED ELEMENTS OF
HIP-HOP
A Film by Bob Bryan(www.graffitiverite.com)

Review of GV5: The Sacred Elements of Hip-Hop
by Alex of www.riotsound.com (January 24, 2006)


Sometimes we forget what Hip-Hop is really about and looking at the
world around us often makes it a concept that's even harder to
understand. Hip-Hop seems to be everywhere. Hip-Hop clothing, Hip-Hop
cars, Hip-Hop jewelry, Hip-Hop movies, Hip-Hop toys, Hip-Hop
ringtones.

Over the past decade we've seen a staggering flurry of Hip-Hop
inspired consumer products. However, we must not forget that when we
look at a billboard or a magazine ad, we are not seeing Hip-Hop. What
we are seeing is how commerce and industry has been influenced by a
culture. As director Bob Bryan reminds us in the fifth installment of
his award-winning documentary series Graffiti Verite'
(www.graffitiverite.com) , Hip-Hop is not something that is sold at
your local department store.

With Graffiti Verite' 5: The Sacred Elements of Hip-Hop
(www.graffitiverite.com/GV5_PressRelease.htm), Bryan
travels to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to film a four day Hip-Hop workshop put
on by students and faculty at Metro High School and inspired by
earlier volumes the director's Graffiti Verite' series. While Iowa
may be the last place on earth we think of when someone mentions Hip-
Hop, Bryan quickly reveals that America's heartland provides the
perfect setting for Hip-Hop culture to emerge and thrive in its
purest form.

Watching Metro High School students explore and experiment with
elements of MCing, breakdancing, DJing and graffiti art, it suddenly
becomes apparent how universal these building blocks really are. In
one of the many interviews with workshop participants and onlookers,
a man in his seventies previously unfamiliar with the culture,
describes how he now views Hip-Hop to be in many ways analogous to
religion. "The MC would be the pastor and the DJ would be the choir
director", he explains.

As teachers, parents and local residents offer their assessments,
students collaborate over four days to paint a mural, put on a dance
show, write and recite poetry and learn some Hip-Hop fundamentals.

While many in the community are surprised and impressed with the
results, workshop participants are excited and inspired by the Hip-
Hop curriculum. In effect, Graffiti Verite' 5 successfully
demonstrates the value of Hip-Hop as a multi-intelligence learning
model through which students can express themselves and learn from
one another while simultaneously building a variety of skills.

Bob Bryan has even gone so far as to create a Hip-Hop curriculum
teacher's workshop guide, a tool available to any educators who may
be interested in taking a lesson from the director's latest film. An
advocate of using Hip-Hop as a tool to bridge the growing divide
between teachers and students, Bryan describes his time at Metro as
revealing of the "educational value and liberating therapeutic power
contained within the unique elements of the contemporary Hip-Hop
movement".

In the end Graffiti Verite' 5 reminds us what corporate marketers
never learned and what some of us forget all too often. Hip-Hop isn't
about what you can purchase or acquire to make yourself stand out,
rather it is about what you can create or express to better yourself
and those around you. -Review by Alex (RiotSound.com)

To learn more about the Graffiti Verite' Hip-Hop documentary series
and director Bob Bryan please visit www.GraffitiVerite.com.

****************


The Source Weekly
(www.tsweekly.com)
VOLUME 9 ISSUE 51 DECEMBER 22, 2005

GRAFFITI VERITE' 5 DVD REVIEW

Hip Hop Culture From The Grassroots
Bend's Person People and LA filmmaker Bob Bryan
By Jeff Trainor

Transcending ethnic, religious, economic and geographical boundaries,
Hip Hop culture is the global movement of fellowship and self-
expression today. As such, it's also a powerful communication medium
in communities of all sizes, everywhere. In the age of desktop film
and music production, everyday hip hoppers have close access to the
tools to beam their creative energy worldwide, and in so doing create
snapshots of hometown hip hop wherever it lives.

Graffiti Verité 5:The Sacred Elements of Hip Hop / Bryan World
Productions

After an initial VHS release in 2003, LA-based filmmaker Bob Bryan's
documentary, GV5, is new to DVD this year. It's the fifth
installment in a series of award-winning documentaries Bryan started
with Graffiti Verité in 1995 (www.graffitiverite.com). That film
explored the world of street-level graffiti art in Los Angeles.

GV5 explores hip hop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, showing the experience on
several different levels as it follows the students of an alternative
high school through a four-day summer workshop. The workshop gives
the students of Cedar Rapids' Metro High the opportunity to
experience hip hop culture through its four elements: emceeing
(rapping), deejaying, breakdance and graffiti art.

By its basic premise, GV5 has a self-promotional element-- Metro
High's faculty were inspired by Graffiti Verité
(www.graffitiverite.com)
in crafting their hip hop workshop. It's appropriate in a way, since
arrogance (feigned or not) is always a prominent part of hip hop
culture. Still, director/producer Bob Bryan does well to keep the
film focused on the
main point: hip hop's power to influence the youth in a positive way.

Much of the film is comprised of interviews with students learning
hip hop dance, working on a huge graffiti art mural for their
community, and reading or rapping their own poetry. For some, the
workshop is their first experience with hip hop; others describe it
as a part of their lives from early childhood on. Students of all
shapes, sizes, and colors come together to express their thoughts and
emotions through hip hop's elements, and the byproducts are positive
for the whole community.

GV5's value as a document of cutting-edge urban culture takes a
backseat to its examination of the hip hop experience through a
neophyte's eyes. It does open with an interesting profile of Chrang,
an insightful LA-based DJ, MC, and graff artist; it also profiles
Paco Rosic (www.paco-rosic.com/contact.html), the spray can wizard
who oversees the workshop's mural project.

GV5 is a valuable in-road to hip hop culture for teachers and anyone
in the community seeking to understand the phenomenon on a basic
level, and a testament to the fact that the positive influence of hip
hop is everywhere--even the red states. -By Jeff Trainor, The Source
Weekly (www.tsweekly.com)

To contact Filmmaker Bob Bryan or to view the Graffiti Verite' Hip-
Hop documentary series on-line please visit www.GraffitiVerite.com.