The Old Dirty Bastard Biopic Would Be A TERRIBLE MOvie, But I Would Probably Still Watch It

Complex- Straight Outta Compton's box office success and critical success, both hard to come by simultaneously in films, has opened doors for two long awaited music biopics. One of them is the Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez on Me, finally in production after years, which just announced who's been cast to play Faith Evans. The other is a biopic about Wu-Tang Clan's Ol' Dirty Bastard first said to have been written in 2011 according to RZA who tells Rolling Stone plans for the biopic are moving forward. 

According to RZA the biopic was written by a cousin of ODB and his, Rayshawn. "I think it's a great idea, and there has been talk about it. There are a few wheels in motion with one done by our first cousin Rayshawn; he was the young guy there watching everything that happened," RZA told Rolling Stone adding that he's seen a teaser for film calling it "the best thing that I've seen so far." "Him and ODB's wife have been talking and he has a pretty interesting script. I just saw a 12-minute teaser that he shot about a year ago and it felt pretty fucking cool," said RZA. "I watched it and was like, 'Wow, you may have something here.' He has the best thing that I've seen so far."

"From the age of six, me and [ODB] used to push shopping carts around grocery stores and try to get nickels. There are very few people who know the real him as much as me. So it would be something that I would be honored to do, but there's a lot of moving parts to it. If those moving parts don't go in sync with me, I'll still be on it just to see it happen, talk to whoever's doing it and give them my interviews or whatever they need to help make this story as great as possible."



I love hip hop. I love the Wu Tang Clan. I loved 'Straight Outta Compton'. You would think the combination of those three things would mean that I love the idea of an Old Dirty Bastard biographical movie, but that couldn't be further form the truth. The most important part about a movie that glorifies one's life is that said person's life had substantial meaning. Don't get me wrong, I love ODB. I just don't think his experiences reenacted on the big screen would make other people fall in love with him too. The thing that made N.W.A. such a good fit for the theatre is that they embraced a concept that many people could relate to given the state of racial unrest in this country. They brought to light the prejudice that many young black men faced growing up in the late 80's. Their cinematic portrayal painted them as sympathetic figures. People that -while partaking in a host of questionable activities- were actually accomplishing something considerably more important than creating music.

I guess what I am trying to say here is that Old Dirty Bastard makes N.W.A. look like MLK. He makes Eazy E look like Malcolm X. Old Dirty Bastard was awesome but 'Shimmy Shimmy Ya' didn't exactly highlight some societal injustice. Granted, 'Got Your Money' did highlight the importance of prostitution, but I honestly don't think prostitution was looking for the exposure. Assault? Robbery? Drug possession? Murder? How shitty of a story would it have to be for him to come out a hero? The most commendable thing about Old Dirty Bastard is that he was a complete lunatic that could make you laugh. I imagine his biopic would look like something like a ghetto/criminal version of 'Jackass'. Obviously that's all you would need to get someone like me to spend $12 on a ticket, but something tells me that trailer isn't grabbing the eyeballs of too many casual fans. Well, at least not in a good way. Let's just bask in the glory of his music videos instead of trying to turn them into a feature film...