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Epps standing in front of a painting by Malik Seneferu. The Epps Affair Kevin Epps comes Straight Outta Hunters Point with a message By Gabriel Serpa On a recent Friday evening, from the comfort of an oversized-Victorian hallway, nearly thirty West Oakland residents are offered a virtual tour of a neighboring ghetto via the vision of director Kevin Epps and his documentary, Straight Outta Hunters Point. I was fortunate enough to sit down with Mr. Epps at the Prescott-Joseph Community Center for the screening and follow-up discussion of his intense documentary about a community of thriving hip-hop artists. The film exposes the dealings of record labels such as Big Block Records and West Mob Records in a war over turfs and drugs. While hip-hop music has become a scapegoat for the violence on these streets, the film -- presented as a hip-hop documentary -- goes much deeper into the social conditions of Hunters Point. Through the movie and our subsequent conversation, I was dealt the rhythms of a community that is struggling to survive. With violence a daily event in Hunters Point, one scene finds Epps filming in the mid-dle of a shooting. The incident places viewers in the darkness of gunfire as Epps runs to help Little Jigga who's just been shot. Struggling to catch his breath, Epps screams for an ambulance, in turn raising the anxiety level in the audience. "Sometimes you get consumed with your little world, just trying to survive and make ends meet. But to see that the community on a larger scale had all these issues," Epps addresses the intricacies of making a film so close to him, "there were many things that I did not have an answer to. I think seeing that and going through that while I was shooting was difficult because it was becoming painfully clear I was abreast of the situations." Since the debut of Straight Outta Hunters Point six months ago, Epps sees the screening for his hometown as his most precious moment. "We had a screening at the Bay View Opera House which is the heart of Hunters Point. It was a community effort; six to seven hundred people came. That was the most critical time for me because I did not know how people were going to receive this film. To have the older generation and the younger generation sit and create dialogue about some of the greater issues we are dealing with under one roof was powerful. The film has been inspiring to a lot of youngsters, it's been uplifting to the community, creating a lot of dialogue in some of the communities confronted with problems. To have that type of vignette surrounding the project is priceless." The importance of opening up dialogue and community involve-ment is reflected in the film's images of neighborhoods transformed into graveyards with flower memorials on street corners, chain link fences, trees, sidewalks -- wherever someone has taken a bullet. Epps admits personal exper-ience with daily violence while running the streets has turned into positive motivation for him. Ayodele Nzinga, artist-in- residence at the Prescott-Joseph Community Center, led a com-munity discussion following the documentary screening. Epps took the opportunity to relate what kids are looking for in Hunters Point. He mused about sitting on a concrete ledge reading, and only seconds later being surrounded by children curious about what he's reading. The simple story dem-onstrates the lack of resources available to children in Hunters Point, how hungry they are for something to do other than gangbang and sell drugs. Straight Outta Hunters Point is without a doubt an introspec-tive look into the world of hip hop, but the music itself becomes the vehicle that moves the issues plaguing Hunters Point. "We're all trying to square up and do something legal where we can get paid, but it's hard," one young man in the film finds words to express the struggle. "Getting out of jail, then getting a job -- and you got four or five kids -- making six and seven dollars an hour. What's that going to take care of? You feel me?" Gabriel Serpa ([email protected]) is a freelance writer who spends his free time with Fernando Pessoa and an Amethyst Rockstar. [ East Bay | Metroactive | Archives ]