Internet through hip-hop eyes
2009-01-12 10:00
Las Vegas - Hollywood movie industry veterans Damon Whitaker and Rami Rivera Frankl are betting that fascination with Internet Age technology pulses as naturally as a base beats through the hip-hop generation.
The pair are convinced that gadget-loving young blacks and Latinos - each fast-growing communities - are being neglected by media outlets new and old.
That is why they were at the world's top Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas filming a pilot for a Black Latino Entertainment Technology (BLET) Report programme that has already garnered interest from major television studios.
"We are Gen-X from the Hip-Hop generation," Whitaker said as he and Frankl dashed about the CES show floor on Sunday, the final day of the annual gizmo extravaganza in Las Vegas.
"It seems that people talk down to Gen X-Y-Millennium babies, which is odd because we grew up with internet technology.
"We are going to bring it home; show the generation how it applies to their lives and is used by friends."
Expanded content
Whitaker and Frankl expect BLET to be on television by the middle of this year and are building an online stage for expanded content as well as RSS (really simple syndication) feeds of technology news to hip-hop web users.
"Hip-Hop is music, art, dress, graffiti, skateboards, videogames," Whitaker said. "We will not only cover technology, but pull it together with music, art, dress and more from a hip-hop point of view."
Whitaker and Frankl will host and produce BLET, taking advantage of Hollywood and music relationships built up during two decades.
Whitaker described himself as actor Forest Whitaker's "little brother" and has appeared in more than a dozen productions. Entrepreneur Frankl has been a digital media advisor to major film studios.
A Web 2.0 trend of mashing together computer applications into creative hybrid programmes is second-nature to a hip-hop generation known for blending songs from different genres into dance music hits, they said.
"Part of our native tongue is technology," Frankl said. "Baby Boomers are learning it as a second language. The convergence of entertainment and technology is a visceral experience for us."
BLET will be "hands on", with Whitaker and Frankl going as much as possible to places where technology is developed or innovatively applied.
"We geek out," Frankl said. "We want to go where these things are created and play with these toys; sit in the Panasonic massage chair while we are getting a Blu-ray demonstration."
- AFP