Rose outta concrete
Kevin Epps takes a tough look at Hunters Point rap dreams.

By J.H. Tompkins

I RECOGNIZED THE tall, good-looking young man the afternoon we met as he strolled with Mike T. through my office door. Kev Kelly – model, rapper, aspiring entrepreneur, and reluctant building trades worker – was the languid male whose body adorned the club card that had become a near permanent fixture on my refrigerator door courtesy of Krazy Glue and a visiting eight-year-old. Like it or not, I'd seen the 22-year-old Kelly in a white suit and black shirt for months, each time I wanted orange juice.

On this day, however, he wasn't modeling nor had he dropped in for conversation; he was there to make sure – in case I'd forgotten – that I knew who was on top in the San Francisco rap game, or who would be on top if people like me would do what we were supposed to do and let the world know what Kev Kelly was up to. He must have figured I needed help, because two seconds after he arrived, Kelly looked me in the eyes and delivered a high-volume a cappella version of "Rows of Concrete," a track he'd written that morning – he has hundreds of raps on standby – and recorded a few hours later. His body locked into a groove only he could hear, and as the words rolled off his tongue, Kelly looked like a man who had fallen in love.

The delivery was emotional, focused, and professional, as if cutting loose in an 8 foot-by-12 foot office for an audience of two was something he did all the time. There was only one thing bothering the Hunters Point native that day, and it had been bothering him so long that he probably didn't even realize he was bothered.

"I've been rapping since I was eight years old," he told me later, "and there's no way I could stop. It's not like rap is all I do – I model, I know the music business, I have a job I go to every day. But rapping is how I express myself, and I have to do that."

Kelly wants to rap his way out of H.P. and into the hearts and wallets of rap fans everywhere – a dream he shares with hundreds of thousands of aspiring rappers. The truth is that by most standards, Kelly could call it a career and look back at success most wannabes will never come close to matching. He's added guest raps to cuts by other rappers, he's contributed tracks to compilations, and he's performed hundreds of times. He told me his résumé doesn't mean a thing.

"Look at me," he said, suddenly glaring in my direction. "What've I got? I gotta get up every morning and go to work. What's that? Sure, I'm famous around here; people know me, they've seen me perform. So what?"

It didn't take long to discover that Kelly's moods are subject to enormous changes without notice, a state of affairs that shaped our casual back-and-forth and tended to color not just his opinions but facts. Things were flexible, it seemed, and that added an element of surprise to Kelly's assessment of where he's going, how far he's got to go, and how it is he plans to get there. You could call the road map murky and point to obstacles Kelly himself has placed in the way – his three children, for instance, and the construction job that has him on the streets at 7 a.m. five days a week. But when you talk to his friends – Hectic, for instance, or Mr. FAB, rappers from H.P. who, like Kelly, have emerged from the pack enough to have a legitimate claim to the heartaches that go with the turf – what's clear is that precious little is clear.

The three are no doubt different from each other in many ways, but for the time being, they share a few things that are worth noting. First and foremost, they have skills, and what they've got to show for their work and worry are memories and enough frustration to choke an elephant. Those frustrations have inspired an ever evolving bag of plans, plans, plans that at least gives the illusion that logic and reason will prevail. And sometimes, though not often, a well-conceived, creative business plan that can catapult the artists to stardom, where – as the rags-to-riches story goes – their dreams come true.

Hunters Point is about to choke on aspiring rap stars, because – I know it's a cliché, but unfortunately there's truth to it – what else are they supposed to do? There's a pair of lines in the song "Life Is ... Too Short," by Oakland rapper Too $hort (a.k.a. Todd Shaw), that read, "Everybody wants the same old thing / To have big money and fancy things." At his best, Shaw has a way of cutting through life's bullshit and getting down to the point. And here, he's right on the money. Still, the fact that dreams of stardom are as saccharine and clichéd as daytime television in no way undercuts the role they play in the mediation of justice essential to social stability. To paraphrase another wise rapper from the Bay, E-40, "[people] just want to be pacified."

Filmmaker Kevin Epps knows something about dreams – he made a few of his own come true in 2001 when he released the ambitious, award-winning full-length documentary Straight outta Hunters Point. Epps took viewers into the city's notorious neighborhood, where the once temporary housing is as battered as the hopes of its residents, and streets and sidewalks are lined with memorials to young men murdered in senseless gang violence. He has followed that film with another, Rap Dreams, about the turmoil, troubles, life, and times of Kelly, Hectic, and Mr. FAB. As it happens, his film has become part of the local dreamscape.

"What I am doing," 25-year-old Hectic said, "is all about my five-year-old son. I've been rapping since I was 14. I've always tried to improve myself, to get better skills, to work harder. I will not be stopped."

I'm convinced that Hectic – whose raps have the same resolve and intelligence that he brings to conversation – could level a skyscraper with willpower alone. Still, it's anybody's guess whether that will take him to the top. Asked about the impossible odds, Kelly said nothing can stop him – but his raps are energized by his doubts. Sitting on a threadbare rug in a roughed-up editing studio where a young woman was hunched over a Macintosh and a handful of young men from the Bayview and Hunters Point chopped it up noisily next door, Hectic looked around as if to take it all in and, nearly shouting to be heard, swung his hand – with a finger pointed for emphasis – through the air.

"I'll tell you what's going on right now that's going to make a difference," he pronounced, his eyes following Epps as he walked across the room. "That man right there is going to change things; he can do great things with that camera."

When I sat down with Epps, we watched part of Rap Dreams and talked about the pressures of following up his initial success. The new film shows the benefits of experience and the confidence that comes with it. Rap Dreams has authority, staking its claims to the turf without asking permission. Epps seemed nervous when talking about the process – which included editing assistance from Johnny Cabaddu and Jordan Auten – but utterly at ease behind the camera. On film he captures aimless, chaotic energy – the stuff of youth, amplified by drive-by murders and poverty – without a trace of chaos. The editing is crisp, and the powerful emotions on display are consistently understated to avoid the kind of emotional manipulation that, when overused, does little but trigger a backlash.

Most important, Epps is unflinching when he approaches the illusions that allow these rappers to survive. "You know," he said quietly, "I don't allow those guys to see the film. There's just no way that would work, because they won't like everything, because sometimes the truth hurts."

While shooting Rap Dreams, Epps did a long interview with Charlie Walker, the self-proclaimed "Mayor of Hunters Point" – a font of hard-scrabble wisdom as well as Kelly's grandfather. He came up battling Jim Crow, and he looms over the film like a judge. Things have changed, he implies, but they haven't changed all that much – and if he had to give up a career in music, he isn't about to give his grandson a blank check. The change – or better put, the lack of change – was underscored when I walked into a room and found Kelly and Hectic in front of a poster bearing photos of some 20 men murdered in recent years around Hunters Point.

"He's fam," Kelly said, pointing to one young man, "and him too, he's fam. Oh man, and him ... but I'll tell you what I hate: all anybody ever talks about when they talk about H.P. is the bad stuff. I can't stand it when people come in and take pictures or whatever, and it's like all there is out here is murder and bad shit. My life is about all kinds of things, and I rap about all kinds of things too."

In fact, Kelly is the subject of another film. A Rose in the Concrete, by filmmaker Sam Diego, captures Kelly onstage and off-, in the studio and hanging on the street corner. As Kelly talks, I see a talented young man clutching a notebook overflowing with rhymes that someday he'll deliver in a style that's unmistakably his – a blur of imagery, feelings, and ideas demanding to be let loose, rushing into the world as if they need air to breath.

Where Rose teeters occasionally on the verge of cliché, Dreams offers an intricately nuanced examination of life as told from an insider's perspective. Epps brings rap dreams to Rap Dreams, allowing us to step into the explosive life where dreams denied collide with the huge hopes placed on tomorrow's slim possibilities. As a film, it's 100 percent Epps – one of a kind, smart, and full of newfound strength. As a way of life, rap dreams can be incredibly demanding, capricious, and far out of reach. All four men – Kelly, Hectic, Mr. FAB, and Epps – are talented and ambitious; when Rap Dreams debuts this weekend, this particular dream is done. As for the other dreams – big money, stability, feature films, platinum albums, and stardom or something like it – only time will tell.

San Francisco Black Film Festival

The San Francisco Black Film Festival is a one-of-a-kind occasion – a time when, in the past, film fans could find underground treasures like Kevin Epps's Straight outta Hunters Point, as well as mainstream features by prominent black filmmakers. This year pioneering director Melvin Van Peebles is being honored, and the documentary Baadasssss Cinema, about his revolutionary Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, screens after the ceremony Fri/11, 7 p.m., Brava Theater Center, 2789 24th St., S.F. Another much anticipated documentary, Hooked: The Legend of Demetrius "Hook" Mitchell, screens Wed/9, 9 p.m. Kevin Epps's Rap Dreams screens Sat/12, 5:15 p.m., Brava Theater Center. For tickets go to www.ticketweb.com. For a complete schedule see Film listings.