Rusty Cundieff, director of Tales from the Hood, finally got to make Tales from the Hood 2 out on video next week. Since the VOD/home video market allowed a Tales sequel to exist 23 years later, Cundieff revealed that he’s also developing a follow-up to his first creation, Fear of a Black Hat Instead of a film sequel, Cundieff has an idea for a streaming series that would pick up on the fictional rap group N.W.H. today.
FEAR OF A BLACK HAT, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Rusty Cundieff, Larry B. Scott, 1994, (c)Samuel Goldwyn Films
“There is a story of where Tasty and Tone and Ice are today,” Cundieff said while discussing Tales 2. “It would obviously include hip-hop and current hip-hop but it would also be seeing how these guys operate in a world now with children and wives and ex-wives. Lots of ex-wives and ex-girlfriends, and how they as friends or business associates deal with the day to day of their lives. That’s something I’m actively pursuing.”
Ice Cold (Rusty Cundieff’s) shows his autobiography to Nina Blackburn (Kasi Lemmons)
N.W.H. was Cundieff’s take on N.W.A., satirizing the hip-hop world of the early ‘90s. The comedy was a pseudo-documentary about the group featuring their music videos, in-fighting and run-ins with the law. A streaming series would give Cundieff more room to explore where N.W. H. is today.
“I think it would be a combination of documentary and first camera,” Cundieff said. “There’d be a documentary character, a new documentary character who would be chasing these guys around. It would be a combination of that and kind of a single camera thing, sort of Larry Sanders-ish in a certain way.”
Sorry, Nina Blackburn. Someone new will fill your shoes.
A new documentary is sad news for Nina Blackburn (Kasi Lemmons), the fictional director of Fear of a Black Hat. Lemmons is a director of her own movies now, and given her break-up with Ice Cold (Cundieff), they probably wouldn’t let her film them again.
Speaking of N.W.H. relationships, since Fear of a Black Hat, rappers like Ice-T and Kanye West have become reality TV stars due to their marriages. Which N.W.H. member would be most likely to marry a Kardashian? Ice, Tasty Taste (Larry B. Scott) or Tone Def (Mark Christopher Lawrence)?
L-R: Tone Def, Ice Cold and Tasty Taste
“I think as I’m looking at it now, Tasty is kind of in the quasi-Kardashian world, Kardashian/Coco world,” Cundieff laughed. “He’s kind of in that universe.”
Seeing N.W.H. today would be a hoot, but I’ve thought about N.W.H. over the last 24 years every time there’s been a new development in rap music. Cundieff said his idea would include flashbacks to touch on the last 20some years of hip-hop in addition to where the music industry is today.
“I definitely think there’s an opportunity from time to time to flash back to different points in their career and use it to set up what’s going on today between them,” Cundieff said. “There would be various music videos, various other things that we could go back to as well as what’s going on in their lives today.”
More with Cundieff next week as Tales from the Hood 2 is out Tuesday, October 2.
