Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends

I'm actually just making stuff up. Is that allowed? I mean, I didn't see a frog or a toad.

Ripped By mstoll

New Orleans, Louisiana.

I'd heard about an extreme form of gangsta rap that claimed to mirror violent ghetto life,

here in America's so-called Dirty South.

My mission - to make it as the first white, middle-class gangsta rapper.

How're you doing?

First stop, a rap label called Forefront Entertainment.

They specialise in hardcore. I wasn't sure what that meant.

My contact, one Q-T-Pie.

Test, test, test, test.

Are you Q-T-Pie?

- Yeah, I'm Q-T-Pie. How're you doing? - I'm Louis, from the BBC.

- How are you doing? - 0h, yeah, how're you doing?

- I'm in the middle of recording. - It's sounding good, actually.

Test, test.

Did you say you were going to give someone a ghettorectomy? What is that?

Yeah, I'm gonna give 'em a ghettorectomy, pull their balls out through their throat,

have 'em sucking on their own dick, like Lewinsky on the Clinton loveboat.

- Yeah. - That's me getting revenge.

Quite gruff. Isn't that tough on your vocal cords?

0h, no, I'm used to it.

You know, the rapping part, I've been doing it since I was about 13, 14, something like that.

I'm hoping to maybe learn a bit about rap, get involved a little bit.

- I like some rap, you know. - 0h.

Is that something you could teach me a bit about?

Come here. You have to come right here.

Whoa. That might be too much.

- Right now? - Right!

Grab your nuts while you're singing, Louis.

- That's what I was just doing. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no!

- 0K, you give me a run through. - Louis, you're killin' me.

If you think I'm not doing that well, just let me know.

All right, I'm gonna let you know. I don't have my shoes on, Louis, so...

- I record without shoes. - 0K. Do you?

Yeah. Let me put my shoes on, Louis. I'm coming.

Take your time.

If someone said to you, "That's good but it's going to sell a lot more if you go a bit softer..."

- No, that can't... - Yes or no?

No, that can't happen, cos if I rap sounding like "My name is Q-T..." No.

- That's not me. - That sounded pretty good.

No, that's me. You see what I'm saying?

No. That's whack.

- How are you doing? - Hey, y'all!

- Hey! - How are you doing?

- You're Sparky. - Yeah, how you doing?

The man Sparky. You were talking into my earphones.

- Right, right, right. - I'm Louis.

- Yeah, you did pretty good. - Thank you.

- I had to do this for him. - Louis did good.

- Quite hardcore. - Yeah, well, that's life.

- That's life, you know. - At Forefront Entertainment?

- Pretty much. - Do you do gangsta rap at all?

Yeah, I mean, pretty much everything we do is gangsta rap.

Cos when you say gangsta rap, you think like, high crime areas, violent background.

But you, Sparky and Q-T-Pie seem very well spoken.

What are your backgrounds like? College?

- Four years. - Four years at college?

Yeah, yeah, so...

- Did you go to college, Q-T-Pie? - Yeah, four years of college.

You know, graduated and got the degree, the whole shindig.

But I'm just saying, my middle class and your middle class, totally different.

Forefront aren't Just about hardcore gangsta rap.

They also produce hardcore gangsta porn films.

Q- T-Pie took me to company director Kim.

- How are you doing? - How are you?

Good. How are you doing, Kim? Forefront Entertainment, it's an exciting project.

Porn and sex and the whole thing has always been a part of hip hop culture.

- Really? - Yeah, it's always been there.

Do you use your rappers in the porn films? And do the porn stars rap as well?

For example, The Vicious Pussycat is a movie that we're working on.

She's starring in the movie but with the sex scenes we'll have our porn,

our people that do porn come in and perform.

Really? If you're the main character, though,

won't people be expecting to see you in the hardcore scenes?

You're gonna have to see the movie!

If they expect that, they expect that, but I'm not telling you how far I'm going, Louis!

After you.

Are these some of your movies? Forefront movies?

These are our movies that we've done over the years.

Hot Black Southern Freaks.

- Black & Wild, Generation Triple X. - Mm-hm.

- And Platinum Pussies. - Platinum Pussies.

- They're all black themed, aren't they? - Right.

That's what... Because there is such a shortage of black adult entertainment films.

We know what we wanna see.

"Hot new ebony honeys from all over the US, doing the nasty stuff like the pros."

- The nasty stuff! - It's called Keeping It Real.

This is where we do some of the editing, as well.

- Yes. How are you doing? What's your name? - Hi. How you doin'?

- Dick McGee. - Dick McGee. Louis.

- Nice to meet you. - Dick McGee writes the scripts for the movies.

- Is that you? - Yeah, that's me. This is the new movie.

It's a funny combination, isn't it, doing rap and porn?

- It's a unique combination. - It's something that's never been done before.

This is the first time that it's actually been combined.

You're making what you would like to see.

Yeah, just like the music. Nothing is watered down or whatever.

Who's that on there, right now?

0h, that's Cupcake. That's Cupcake and that's Snake.

Say, you gonna roll with us? I'm gonna take Louis to rehearsal.

Q- T-Pie was off to Join Forefront's porn stars

at a run-through for her new movie, Vicious Pussycat.

The film ties in with the release of her album of the same name.

What the fuck's going on?

You told me it was just supposed to be a robbery and that was it.

This some personal shit, I really can't get into it right now.

- What's going on? - Boom!

Sparky, what's happening in this scene?

Simone and Lex had... It was kind of like they set up a hit.

- Who's Simone? - Simone is Satin.

- Satin, how do you do? Louis. - Hi.

- Pleased to meet you. That was looking good. - Thank you.

- Is that a real gun? - Yeah, it's real.

Wow. Make sure there's no bullets in it.

Yeah, no bullets.

- And Satin plays, erm... - Simone.

Simone, who is Q-T-Pie's sidekick.

Exactly, and they're kinda like in a relationship together.

She's gonna actually kill her friend in this scene.

Hello?

Sparky, why did Satin just take her top off?

0h, we're just rehearsing this part, just to make it look natural.

- Like she would be at home. - And a bit sexy?

- Yeah, that too. - That doesn't hurt.

- No, it doesn't hurt. - It doesn't hurt.

I'd enjoyed my time with Q-T-Pie.

But I was getting the impression that gangsta rap was more about playing at being tough.

- Bitch! - What the fuck you gonna do?

So far, so good. But now I wanted to meet the real thing.

I had a lead in Jackson, Mississippi,

about a gangster who was turning his back on crime in order to pursue a rap career.

Yeah, you can get out, mind.

- How are you doing? You must be Mellow T. - No doubt.

- I'm Louis. Louis Theroux. - I heard a lot about you.

- Good. - A lot about you.

- You're looking very, very smart. - This is just Mellow style, you know.

This is, like, worldwide international godfather gangsta pimp style.

- Yeah, yeah. - That's what I'm bringing you.

Is this your residence here?

This is one of the residences I got for one of my groups.

This is nice. It's quite dark in here, isn't it?

Yeah, they like it that way.

- What is this? - It's the work-out area.

They either work out here or they work out in the prison.

- You feel? - Yeah.

- Who's this gentleman right here? - This is Big D.

- Big D. How do you do? Louis. - How you doin'?

You know, me and this man right here...

I'm in the music business, but one of my number-one economic contributors

has always been the pimp business.

You know what I'm saying? The scripple business, the prostitution business,

that's been my business for the last three, four years.

- That's stuff you do, now? - Right.

Right, but it's the money. It's the money behind my music.

It's the money that finances the studio, that finances the music business.

Cos in Britain, to be a pimp would be considered definitely...

- Illegal? Just like being a drug dealer? - Illegal, and maybe immoral. Immoral.

Same thing here. It's the same thing here.

It's the same thing. Even stronger here.

Because, see, Mississippi's known as the Bible Belt state.

- So it's a bad thing to do? - Yeah, no doubt. For sure.

And you can go to the penitentiary for doing it.

And you can get killed for doing it.

Mellow had a session booked with his producer, Derek.

He invited me to tag along.

One thing that's interesting about Mellow is that he's not just rapping about it, he's living it.

He's a real pimp.

He uses it to get himself out of a situation,

and at the same time to bring a certain story, or the reality of what it's about,

because you've got a lot of people that's talking about pimping and gangsta things.

They've never pimped, never sold drugs, they don't know what it's about. Studio gangsters.

Mellow had invited me to rap with him.

This would be my debut performance, so I was a little bit nervous.

This is a song that I'm gonna be doing on my new album.

- Really? - I just don't want to be it no more.

You know what I'm sayin'? I don't want to be this no more.

Is this baller?

This goes out to all the young folks. You know what I'm saying.

Young kiddies, thinking you want to get into these gangs.

I lost it. 0K.

I feel you, Louis. Feel where you're coming from, man. Straight out, you understand?

- Yes. Thank you. - I feel where you're coming from.

I know what you're speaking upon, you know?

- We both want out this thing. - Yes, well, I'm not actually in it.

Mellow T with the BBC, coming to a store near you, you feel what I'm saying?

Hopefully, in four or five more months, my music'll be so far off the ground,

and, you know, I wouldn't have to be associated with that lifestyle no more.

But right now, I'm still in it.

Yeah, so you actually want to make a legitimate business out of the rapping,

and leave pimping and prostitution behind you.

- For sure. No doubt. - Really?

All this used to be crack houses, you know, we used to roll over here.

I'm gonna take you a couple of neighbourhoods, gonna get out, meet some of the people.

We all the same, you understand what I'm saying?

What we write about is where we from.

- Which is where? - I mean the hood.

- Are we in the hood now? Definitely? - Right.

- Definitely. It's part of it right here. - You're in the heart of it!

- Really? - Yes, sir.