MTV Goes to the ‘Hood : Documentary Promises a Probing Look at Community Life

Rapper Smurfy B. stared pensively at an ornate memorial mural on the wall of the recreation center at the Nickerson Gardens project in Watts where the names of several deceased gang members--many of them friends of his--are immortalized.

“There are my ‘homies’ who are now gone, but they’re not forgotten,” said Smurfy B., 17, a lifelong resident of the housing project, as he rubbed his hand against some of the names written in English script on the wall--L’il Jay, Muscles, Smiley.

Describing other images, he said, “Here’s the dice, which leads to the pipe, which leads to the gun, which leads to the police helicopter. That’s why this section is called the Flipside of Life.”

As Smurfy talked, a nearby voice belonging to a boyish-looking onlooker with stylish brown hair and blue jeans regularly coached him: “You’re moving too far away from the wall. . . . Can you look more into the camera as you’re talking? . . . Move a little more slowly and just tell your story. . . . Let’s do it again.”

Smurfy B., whose real name is Andrew Dennison, patiently paused, waited for cameraman Darryl E. Smith to say, “Action,” and continued: “These are my homeboys, chillin’ . . . .”

The onlooker, producer Rob Fox, watched intently while Smith zoomed in and around Smurfy B., a member of the Juvenile Committee, a Warner Bros. rap group. Residents of Nickerson Gardens, the largest public-housing project in Los Angeles, cast curious glances at the racially mixed crew.

MTV was in the ‘hood.

Fox was filming the project for a documentary that he hopes will bring a gritty touch to MTV, a network more noted for its showcasing of such bands as Guns N’ Roses than for stories about real-life guns.

Fox spent much of the last two months researching and shooting the program, which is intended to show what it’s like to grow up in South-Central and East Los Angeles. The special will join several recent news and entertainment series that have focused on South-Central L.A. after the unrest there earlier this year.

Fox claimed, however, that MTV was able to get more access into the community than mainstream news media because of its connection with musical and community leaders and its popularity with young African-American people through shows such as “Yo! MTV Raps.”

“Once people found out we were from MTV, we were welcomed,” Fox said. “It was all extremely positive. For one thing, we’re one of the only outlets that play rap.”

He said the footage, which is scheduled to be shown in January as a half-hour or hour special, would offer a more penetrating examination of the positive and negative conditions of the community than other news programs.

“What I saw on television news shows after the riots just didn’t make sense to me,” Fox said as he wrapped up shooting last week. “Every time I saw something on the news on South-Central, they would show a gang member, then a minister, and then that would be it.

“I just figured there were more people who lived here that were not being talked to.”

Fox was one of the directors on MTV’s “The Real World,” a video- verite series that chronicled in documentary style the interaction of several young adults living together in a Manhattan loft. In fact, the L.A. program will be hosted by Kevin Powell, one of the “stars” of “The Real World.”

Like that series, the upcoming documentary will have many of the MTV staples to appeal to young viewers--constantly moving visuals, crooked camera angles, rapid-fire music.

Fox said he hopes that the program will help shed light on what is happening in inner-city communities around the country.

“People really have to take a serious look at what’s happening here,” said Fox. “There’s all this talk about rebuilding. But no one is coming up with any solutions.”

Powell said that he was interested in “putting a human face on the community. There was a lot on the news programs about people looting stores and burning, and it just looked like it was going on for no reason. But there was a whole lot that the media didn’t show--the nice homes, the nice people and lawns. The basic thing here is that people want justice and they want jobs.”

One segment of the special will focus on perceptions of South-Central. The crew went up on trendy Melrose Avenue in Hollywood and asked shoppers where South-Central Los Angeles was. “One person said, ‘Just follow the gun smoke,’ ” Fox recounted.

Another segment will focus on 18-year-old Yvette Ramirez, who is trying to escape her family gang background by becoming a nursing student.

Among others interviewed is a youth who claimed to be at the intersection of Normandie and Florence when the riot first broke out, two female police officers who were also on the scene and a Korean businessman and his children.

Fox also talked with several celebrities who grew up in South-Central: film director John Singleton (“Boyz N the Hood”) and controversial rapper Ice-T.

Also featured will be Michael Concepcion, an ex-gang member who was one of the founders of the Crips street gang. Concepcion was one of the main forces behind the 1990 all-star anti-gang project “We’re All in the Same Gang.”

Concepcion helped introduce Fox and his crew around the community and took them to areas where they might not have been welcome without his presence.

“MTV is getting into the real thing,” said Concepcion, 36, who has several projects in the works at Warner Bros. and Columbia Pictures, including a film on his life.

“The majority of the media comes down here and they just hype stuff,” Concepcion said. “They just show what everyone wants to see, not what is really going on. But MTV is really getting into it. Plus, everyone around here watches MTV or BET (Black Entertainment Television). MTV has respect.”

Still, Fox ran into a few difficulties while filming around the community. He had a gun drawn on him when he and the crew inadvertently parked their van on a side street in front of a house that was apparently the location of a drug operation. Parents of some of the young people he talked to sometimes eyed him warily.

During last week’s shooting at Nickerson Gardens, a resident in his 20s interrupted filming, demanding to know what Fox was doing there. The man grew more agitated when Fox declined to interview him, and held up filming for several minutes until Concepcion intervened and told him to move on.

“I made the mistake of dismissing him without really paying attention to him,” Fox said about the incident. “It’s all about respect. I didn’t respect him.”

Fox said he hoped viewers around the country will come away from his program with more understanding--about South-Central Los Angeles and their own communities.

“This is just a microcosm of what’s happening all over,” Fox said. “It just came to a head here faster.”