Rap Sheet: Hip-hop and the Cops

This promises to be one of the least objective, but possibly most entertaining, doco features in years. And, given the subject matter, one that's almost certainly going straight to DVD.

Tyro documaker Don Sikorski has completed "Rap Sheet: Hip-hop and the Cops," which shows that law enforcement has been compiling secret dossiers on hundreds of hip-hop artists and execs for years.

Duh, you say? Of course the cops hate on rap artists, and many rap artists bring on that hate through their actions, but it's a vicious circle worth investigating anyway.

To give credit where it's due, much of this comes from Variety.

The film will feature interviews with artists including Russell Simmons, Kanye West, Busta Rhymes, Ja Rule, Snoop Dogg and Damon Dash about the so-called hip-hop cops. There also are performances by Eminem, Fat Joe, Jadakiss and Lloyd Banks of G-Unit, among others, in case the interviews start to drag. Not a marquee lineup, especially since Banks, in my opinion, just sucks.

It features NYPD surveillance footage obtained by Sikorski, who received his first break in researching the film when Miami police responded to a request he made through the Freedom of Information Act, a tool I never managed to master in my brief career as an actual reporter.

Other law-enforcement authorities involved in the surveillance activities include the FBI and LAPD, along with a nationwide task force set up by the Drug Enforcement Agency, according to the film.

I love conspiracies because, as I'm sure this film will once again prove, they usually turn out to be true.

And while we're at it, if there are such things as "Hip-hop cops," shouldn't their first order of business be finding out who killed Tupac and Biggie?