What Spinal Tap did for the world of hard rock, Fear of a Black Hat (85 percent) attempted to do for hip hop. This unjustly underrated 1994 satire follows a tumultuous year in the life of N.W.H. (N---- With Hats), a group that melds Public Enemy's radical politics with the 2 Live Crew's smutty rhymes. N.W.H. consists of rappers Ice Cold (Rusty Cundieff, who also directed) and Tasty Taste (Larry B. Scott) and DJ Tone Def (Mark Christopher Lawrence), all of whom spout pretentious banalities and wildly un-PC vulgarities (often in the same sentence) to documentarian Nina Blackburn (Kasi Lemmons). (When asked why their song "Kill Whitey" is not racist, Ice Cold responds incredulously that the group was referring to a specific person: their former manager, whose first name is Whitey.)

In addition, the film features hilarious parodies of classic rap videos (send-ups of C&C Music Factory-style hip-house and PM Dawn's hippie-rap are especially devastating) and some sublimely silly moments (especially a scene in which a "Rap Against Violence" presentation to an elementary school class quickly devolves into a brawl between N.W.H. and a rival crew). Some of the jokes are a bit dated, while others (as when the group gets lost backstage, or the fact that the group's managers are constantly being killed) are almost direct rips from Spinal Tap. But anyone who loves rap's golden age will find a lot of big laughs here. And even some of the throwaway gags -- Tasty Taste has a necklace with a bowling trophy on the end; one of the groups on tour with N.W.H. is an all-female ensemble called Parsley, Sage, Rosemary 'n' Thyme -- are at least good for a chuckle. "It's sad that this film has been relegated to cult oddity status," wrote Mike Bracken of Mike Bracken's Horror Films. "If you like rap music, biting satire, or are just looking for something different, check this out."

Fear of a Black Hat: Rappers Against Violence.