This Is The Life: How The West Was One, the award winning documentary about South Central Los Angeles' legendary early nineties hip-hop spot The Good Life Cafe, is being screened tonight at 8PM (Monday, March 9th) as part of Amoeba's Monday Movies @ Space15Twenty at 1520 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Tomorrow, March 10th, is the official release date of the film on DVD, but it will be available today exclusively at the Amoeba screening. I just recently watched This Is The Life and must say that it is a truly excellent hip-hop documentary, one that tells its story with careful, loving detail. That story is of the 
special place that was the Good Life Cafe, a health food restaurant in South Central, that began holding hip-hop nights once a week at a time when NWA, the area's biggest rap ambassadors, were at their peak.
But the type of hip-hop being performed (a lot of it freestyled) at the Thursday night hip-hop gatherings at this South Central cafe could not have been further from the prevalent macho-gangsta posturing of Niggaz With Attitude (NWA).
special place that was the Good Life Cafe, a health food restaurant in South Central, that began holding hip-hop nights once a week at a time when NWA, the area's biggest rap ambassadors, were at their peak.But the type of hip-hop being performed (a lot of it freestyled) at the Thursday night hip-hop gatherings at this South Central cafe could not have been further from the prevalent macho-gangsta posturing of Niggaz With Attitude (NWA).
Started by the conscious African American woman Bea Hall and her musically minded son R. Kain Blaze with the objective "to shun the pervasive West Coast gang culture of the time and cultivate a robust,
progressive artist community," the hip-hop venue was not only insistently non-violent, non-sexist and non-discriminatory, but it also had a strict no cursing policy. This policy, which surprisingly was embraced rather than resented by nearly everyone, resulted in a higher level of creativity in the music. 
1) K'NAAN Troubadour (A&M/Octone Records)
commercial failure by their record label, who expected Licensed To Ill-scale sales and pop radio acceptance, the album catapulted the Beasties from being remembered as mere novelty rap act to serious hip-hoppers in the music history books. Included in countless magazines and critics' "Best Of" album lists, the 20th anniversary reissue of Paul's Boutique package features 24-bit remaster audio and a commentary track. If you don't already own this album, get it.
