What to Stream: Chris Rock as a Wannabe Gangsta in the Rap Mockumentary 'CB4'
Chris Rock works his jailhouse cred in CB4
CB4 (1993) Amazon Instant, iTunes
The Basics: Re-live the meteoric rise, spectacular fall, and miraculous resurrection of the most gangsta of the early-’90s gangsta-rap groups, CB4.
If You Like: This is Spinal Tap, Fear of a Black Hat, A Hard Day’s Night
Hop in the wayback machine and set the dial for March 1993: Bill Clinton is two months into his eight-year Oval Office residency, Cheers is in the midst of its final season, and Christian Bale and Robert Sean Leonard are Hitler Youth by day and swing dancers by night in Swing Kids. Oh, and a young comic and frustrated Saturday Night Live star named Chris Rock is about to invade multiplexes with his first star vehicle, CB4. That’s short for Cell Block 4, the name of the prison wing that wanna-be rap stars Albert (Rock), Euripides (Allen Payne) and Otis (Deezer D) adopt for their fledgling hip-hop trio. The guys haven’t actually done hard time themselves, of course, but the CB4 moniker, along with their new stage names — Albert becomes MC Gusto, Euripides rechristens himself Dead Mike and Otis opts for Stab Master Arson — does help with the hardcore streetwise image they want to project to boost albums sales.
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Released almost a decade after This is Spinal Tap, CB4 — which Rock co-wrote with culture critic Nelson George — very much models itself on the Rob Reiner-directed rock mockumentary. (In fact, it’s one of two rap-world versions of Spinal Tap released in ’93, the other being Rusty Cundieff’s Fear of a Black Hat. Truth be told, Black Hat is the funnier movie, but it’s also harder to find. Some streaming service would be wise to add it to their roster.) The group is followed around by a camera crew, headed up by Chris Elliott’s rock-doc filmmaker, that records their every embarrassing pratfall and screw-up. These fake musicians also cross paths with some real celebrities, including Ice Cube, Flavor Flav and Halle Berry. And where Spinal Tap’s catalogue includes such ridiculous titles as “Big Bottom”” and “Stonehenge,” CB4’s big hits are unlikely tunes like “Straight Outta Locash” and “Sweat From My Balls.”
Although it’s revered now, Spinal Tap did only modest business on its initial release — and CB4 met with a similar lukewarm reception, grossing a disappointing $18 million. Twenty years on though, it’s valued for its skewed take on that era of hip-hip, as well as the way it presages many of the practices of the modern music industry. It also represents an important turning point in Rock’s career. Two months after CB4’s release, he parted ways with SNL and started down the path that would lead to his emergence as a major movie multi-hyphenate who writes, directs and stars in his own features like the upcoming Top Five, which received rave reviews when it premiered at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. That’s enough to place CB4 in our own personal Top 5 pantheon of great Chris Rock movies.
Watch the trailer here:
Photo: Everett Collection
