Portland Director Seena Haddad is back
with Part II of his refreshingly unique Web Series, X-RAY. Starring an
all star cast of Portland Hip Hop artists and community members
including Fountaine, Wes Guy, Koncept, Mac Smiff of We Out Here Magazine
and more. Examining the struggle between urban music and local
authorities that many small towns face, Seena has taken matters in his
own hands to deliver a creative way to tell the story and shed light
upon much need issues. While people may
have been skeptical at first of how the series was going to portray
Portland and it's budding hip hop scene, it seems Part II has been
welcomed with open arms.
X-Ray
follows the main character Marcus, played by Fountaine, as he develops
from an aspiring rapper slash drug dealer in Part I, to finding his
voice and the community beginning to embrace him fully. Reading like a
book, Seena takes the audience chapter by chapter ranging from 4-10
minute episodes breaking down the realities of trying to make it as an
artist and the challenges that come with success.
Watch Part II available now with music from Rasheed
Jamal, Mic Capes, Vinnie Dewayne, Glenn Waco, Blossom, Brookfield
Deuce, The Last Artful, Dodgr, Donte Thomas, Tribe Mars, Fountaine, Maze
Koroma plus more, and be on the look out for Part III coming soon with
appearances from Cool Nutz and Rasheed Jamal.
More Info On X-Ray:
With
X-Ray, his new web series, director Seena Haddad tells one such story—a
fictional one, but one he's strived to have resonate with those in
Portland's hip-hop community. It's a realistic, ground-level view of
what it means to "make it" in the rap game, where success is measured in
increments, and the drive to be heard is balanced against everything
else going on in an artist's life: friends, family, romantic
relationships, the work that actually puts money in your wallet. The
first season, premiering online this week, follows an aspiring young MC
whose goal is not to get in the ear of some mogul and score a
multimillion-dollar deal: He just wants to get a mixtape out. Empire it
is not. It's an archetypal tale of starting from the bottom, one which
looks, feels and, most crucially, sounds like Portland.
Getting
those details right were crucial for Haddad. Expectedly, it took some
trial and error to get there. After all, Haddad had only just returned
to the area two years before he began writing the script. He left
Beaverton in 2006, going to New York and then studying film at the
American University of Paris, and is currently based in L.A. After
completing his first draft, he reached out to Fahiym Acuay, founder of
the Pacific Northwest hip-hop blog We Out Here, for an appraisal. "He
didn't capture the issues at hand," Acuay says. "It could've been like
any city."
Acuay
became Haddad's de facto tour guide to Portland hip-hop, taking him to
shows and introducing him to MCs. (He's credited as an associate
producer on the show.) One night at Kelly's Olympian, Haddad witnessed a
set by Michael "Fountaine" Stewart. He'd already cast his lead
protagonist, a trained actor from Beaverton, but after seeing Stewart
perform, he began to rethink his decision.
"The
other actor had an idea in his head that he was playing this rapper. He
came from the 'burbs, and it seemed like he was playing into a
stereotype that didn't make sense," Haddad says. "I wanted the character
to be very cerebral. People think about what they say here. In real
life, people aren't trying to make a big show of things, they're just
putting their energy into music."
In
contrast to the bravado found in other rap-themed dramatizations,
Stewart brings a quiet vulnerability to the role of Marcus Ray, a
creative kid reeling from a personal tragedy who is just trying to get
the wheels of his career turning. It helped that, during filming,
Stewart was essentially on the same trajectory in his own career,
releasing his debut last March. "At first, I didn't believe in myself
because I'm like, 'I don't act,'" Stewart says. "[Haddad] just said to
be myself. The story he wrote was my up-and-coming story as an artist."
Haddad filled out the cast with other non-actors recognizable to local
hip-hop fans, including Epp, Wes Guy and Maze Koroma, and also brought
in producers 5th Sequence and Samarei to do the soundtrack.
After
a year and a half of stops and restarts—a hard-drive crash in October
forced him to re-edit several episodes—Haddad is finally ready to put
X-Ray online. It will play out over 10 brief episodes, most under 10
minutes. It sounds modest. But for those who see themselves in Marcus
Ray, who've scrapped to make hip-hop viable in a city where it's often
appeared to be outlawed, it's a crucial depiction of just how hard
they've fought.
"I
want people to come away knowing that there is a scene here," Acuay
says. "It hasn't been easy. It's on the edge now, pushing into the
actual music scene, and I want people to know how we've had to
struggle." - Matt Singer (Willamette Week)
source: Anthony Rian