Fear of a Black Hat

Rap may indeed be the music of modern urban rebellion. It's also the boom-box harbinger of fast-buck fashion, pseudo macho posturing and crotch-grabbing misogyny.

But most of all, rap music is often guilty of being more style than substance – its hostile sense of social defiance often bends under the enormous weight of its performers' gold-plated jewelry.

The whole scene is primed more for parody than revolution, which is what the comedy Fear of a Black Hat does with relative ease and effectiveness.

Overtly modeled on the rock spoof This Is Spinal Tap, Fear of the Black Hat is a faux documentary about a year in the career of the rap group N.W.H. (Niggaz With Hats). They're an odd mix of pop radical attitudes, inner city bravado, half-baked pretensions and Dr. Seuss-derived headgear.

N.W.H. violently opposes censorship (unless threatened with arrest), oppression by the white man (well, actually, they're really against their ex-manager, who's name was White) and gun control. They spend most of their time in violent backstage shoot-outs against rival rap group the Jam Boys.

Writer-director Rusty Cundieff plays Ice Cold, the closest thing the group has to a leader. The only problem is, neither Tone Def (Mark Christopher Lawrence) or Tasty-Taste (Larry B. Scott) want a leader. Whether or not they want a leader, they certainly need a road manager who's better at ducking bullets than the last five guys who had the job.

Any parody of a single subject starts to drag after awhile, but for the most part, Fear of a Black Hat is a sly and hysterical treat that lampoons several ripe targets.