There were parts of repertoire that made him so special, like that he was this little dude with this giant voice, and that he had this swagger to him." It has to be as true-to-life as possible. If they make him five-ten-when he wasn't that-then it wouldn't do him any justice. "Of course the vocals have to be on point," says Flesh. On the Bone Thugs side, Eazy's children worked with engineers to incorporate their own voices, swag, and style into a multidimensional metamorphism-Lil Eazy-E is the body the voice of Baby Eazy-E (also known as E3) is synthesized with the vocals Eazy's daughter Erin, a spitting image of her pops, provided the facial expressions. On the Wu side, RZA helped design a grand vision for the set, while ODB's mom and widow consulted on everything from clothes to attitudinal authenticity, and his MC son, Young Dirty Bastard, recreated his dad's famously frenetic movements using motion capture methods like in video game programming. Guerilla Union's tech squad is relying on an arsenal of special techniques, from strategic mirror placement and green screens to animation and re-mastering of old recordings. Weisberg and the artists were surprisingly open about their approach, considering the minefield they're about to walk across. This is technology at its greatest level." "After that, we were ecstatic to see Eazy come to life in such a way. "The whole idea of having resurrected in the same fashion that Snoop and Dre did Pac was warm and welcoming," says Flesh-N-Bone of Bone Thugs. "I've been speaking with RZA about it for a couple of years now-he's a director, he's infinitely fascinated with technology and moviemaking, and he was receptive to the thought of actually doing it this year…From there, you just approach it with a lot of sensitivity and respect." "I didn't initiate the virtual performances," says Chang Weisberg, head of the Guerilla Union. To better understand both the emotions and mechanics being poured into the dynamic ODB and Eazy projections, we talked to Guerilla Union, the team behind the tour, and the recently reunited Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, who will rock the bells along with their mentor Eazy's avatar-to learn about how artists and producers prep for collaborations with computer-generated imagesof fallen comrades. The hologram controversy has been covered from many angles-artistic integrity, capitalistic overreach, bad taste-but one question has been missed: What's it actually like for a rapper to share a stage with a dead friend? Starting tomorrow, two more late legends-NWA's Eazy-E and Wu Tang's Ol' Dirty Bastard-will be performing virtually at the annual Rock the Bells tour, in a spectacle that threatens to start the cycle of endless blog rants and boom-bap purist righteousness anew. Especially since the company responsible for that spectacle-Digital Domain-has since filed for bankruptcy. Dre at Coachella last year-disbelief, scorn, horror-you'd think such virtual posthumous performances had gone the way of Smell-O-Vision. Judging by the responses to a Tupac "hologram" performing alongside Snoop Dogg and Dr.
0 kommentar(er)
