Coco (2017)
Concept Art
Miguel (voiced by Anthony Gonzalez)

Pixar’s next original animated film, titled Coco will not be “a break-out-into-song musical,” but instead one “set against the backdrop of musical performance”, according to the movie’s director Lee Unkrich.

The movie will be one where the 12-year old Coco will be “breaking all the rules.” The synopsis given tells the story of how the Riveras are an average Mexican family—except the family has banned music for several generations. The ban originated from a great-great-grandmother whose husband abandoned his family in pursuit of music. Not to be deterred by the rules of his family, Coco follows the advice of the deceased Ernesto de la Cruz as he pursues his passion. Unfortunately, Coco “borrows” de la Cruz’s guitar from his grave on the one day he really, really shouldn’t have—Dia de Los Muertos. Coco must then travel to the land of the dead and face the family that caused the ban on music from his life.

In the production of this film, Unkrich knew that there was going to be great pressure to get the movie culturally impeccable. He told Entertainment Weekly that:

The day John Lasseter gave the thumbs up for this movie, I immediately felt this huge weight drop onto my shoulders because I knew that we were doing something different than we had ever made at the studio and that for the first time, we were going to have this enormous responsibility to do right by this culture and not lapse into stereotype or cliché.

After an initial misstep in the beginning of the production process, he has thus ensured an all Latinx cast and has consulted many cultural experts to make sure that he avoided the pitfalls that generally appear in media. The movie was approved 3 weeks before the festival of Dia de Los Muertos, causing a scramble to get over the border to research the traditions. The misstep, which included an attempt to trademark “Dia de Los Muertos” in 2013 which received much backlash, did make their conviction stronger that they needed to avoid any more mistakes:

 It reinforced our desire to make sure that we reached out to as many experts as we could and to involve as many people in telling this story accurately. This is a story we want to share with the world, but it’s also been particularly important to us that when the Latino community sees the film, that it resonates and it feels like we got it right, and that’s what we’re really trying to do. We all feel the gravity.

This movie will no doubt be an important step in the right direction to make sure that popular media does not continue to rely on common stereotypes or assumed information about cultures not necessarily in the majority in the United States. Coco will arrive in theaters on November 22, 2017.

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The post First Look For Pixar’s ‘Coco’ Released appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Seems like everyone, from your best friend to your favorite celebrity, to the newly championed Golden State Warriors, and even Chelsea FC from across the pond, are in love with the CoCo. Of course I’m talking about O.T. Gensis’ smash hit “CoCo” which has seen monster success on a global scale, so it makes sense O.T. Genasis has decided to keep the ball rolling and drop some more material. This time around however, Genasis taps Lil’ Wayne for a verse which isn’t really that surprising considering Wayne’s recent announcement that the Free Weezy Album will be here by July 4th and who better to share the spotlight with than Hip-Hop’s newest rising talent. “Do It” comes through with an uplifting piano core,  surrounded by all the snaps, and bass kicks that we’ve learned to love from “CoCo”, finished off with a decent verse from Lil’ Wayne. Check out the track below and look for the Free Weezy Album to drop July 4th.

The post New Music: OT Genesis “Do It” Feat. Lil’ Wayne appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

As we all await the new Lil Wayne album to drop (whenever that may be!), Weezy drops a new video for his version of ‘CoCo‘. The track first surfaced on his Sorry 4 The Wait 2 mixtape a short time back and today it gets a visual treatment. Peep the visual above!

The post New Video: Lil Wayne – “CoCo” (Remix) appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

British singer Ed Sheeran performed at BBC’s Live Lounge, covering music by Christina Aguilera, Redman, and even an acoustic version of O.T. Genasis‘ hit, “CoCo”. It may be difficult to imagine how Sheeran can transform a street anthem into an acoustic sound, but he definitely succeeds in doing so. Check out the performance below.

The post Ed Sheeran Covers O.T. Genasis’ “CoCo” appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Warriors’ big man, Marreese Speights, who usually leads the team in the sing along and posts videos of it on Instagram broke the news early Sunday morning via Twitter. A disappointed Speights tweeted out “We wish we could do the coco thing but they said we can’t nomore sorry!!! #dubnation!!! ” Hopefully, “Coco” doesn’t prove to have been the team’s good luck charm and they are able to keep up their winning ways.

The post Golden State Warriors Banned From Celebrating Wins By Singing About The Coco! appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Ludacris has dropped a freestyle over O.T. Genasis‘ “CoCo.” This one minute and thirty second track goes hard and comes almost two weeks before he’s set to drop Burning Bridges. Burning Bridges drops on December 16th.

Peep the freestyle below.

The post New Music: Ludacris “CoCo” (Freestyle) appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.