Brooklyn, N.Y., emcee Talib Kweli spoke to Hot 97 about the hot-button topic of Quentin Tarantino‘s controversial film Django Unchained, and revealed his admiration for the acclaimed filmmaker’s body of work. Kweli shared that he feels that the controversy over the use of the “N-word” in the movie is somewhat misguided and acknowledged that people may have misunderstood director Spike Lee‘s bitterness toward the movie.
“I liked it a lot, it was thoroughly, thoroughly entertaining,” Kweli said in the interview. “[Offended by it?] Nah. I’m a fan of Quentin Tarantino. I’m a student of his films. I know what I’ma get when I go see his films. Slavery was the real backdrop of the story and I think that’s where the real debate lies. Slavery should be the backdrop, whether or not you should use the ‘spaghetti Western’ format to tell the story that involves slavery, but once you get past that argument, it was a great story. It wasn’t no Pulp Fiction, but it was real good.”
“I don’t think [the N-word usage] was an issue with Django Unchained. Clearly it is of the time, clearly the N-word was a word that was used way more times than a hundred times,” Kweli continued. “The word ‘N—a’ in the movie Django Unchained was perfect — when you’re having arguments and people are weighing in on social networks, what the actual argument is gets lost. Spike Lee, even though he’s had problems in the past with Quentin using the word ‘n—a’ in his films, in Reservoir Dogs, in Pulp Fiction, that was never his issue with this film. He never said, ‘My issue is …’ People assumed that was his issue. His issue was, ‘Slavery was, to my ancestors, such an important topic that if you’re going to make a film about it, it needs to be treated as serious subject matter.’ ”
Fellow NYC rhymer Nas also spoke about the movie this week.
“I didn’t see what the big fuss was about,” the Queens native told MTV. “It’s a movie, movies by [Tarantino], why should we be surprised if the movie is raw? … He’s one of the greatest filmmakers of our generation, and we don’t go there to see anything less than rawness. He’s an artist, and artists have to express themselves.”
