Long live Ol’ Dirty Bastard.
A new documentary chronicling the legacy of the late Wu-Tang Clan rapper also known as O.D.B., is in the works.
A+E Networks announced Thursday it acquired worldwide distribution rights for the two-hour film, tentatively “Biography: Ol’ Dirty Bastard,” which is being co-produced by the late artist’s estate.
Co-directed by Academy Award-nominated, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Sam Pollard and his son Jason, the documentary has never-before-seen personal archival footage provided by Icelene Jones, who is Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s widow and the sole executor of his estate.
“I am thrilled to tell the full story of my husband. With this documentary the world will learn about the son, the husband, the father, and the artist,” she said in a statement.
O.D.B (whose given name was Russell Tyrone Jones) broke out from the platinum-selling Staten Island-based hip-hop collective that rose to prominence during the early 1990s.
As the profane and rambunctious wild card of the group, the Brooklyn native caused a stir in 1995 when he was accompanied by an MTV film crew as he and his family rode in a limousine to pick up his food stamps from a check cashing venue.
The cover of his 1995 solo debut album, “Return to the 35 Chambers: The Dirty Version,” featured an image simulating a public assistance identification card. The critically-acclaimed opus – which included songs such as “Brooklyn Zoo,” “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” and “Raw Hide” (with Method Man and Raekwon) — garnered critical acclaim and was nominated for a Grammy for best rap album.
Mariah Carey featured him on the Bad Boy remix of her chart-topping 1995 pop hit, “Fantasy.”
And long before Will Smith smacked Chris Rock on the Academy Awards stage, and before Kanye West stormed Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards, O.D.B. crashed the stage at the 1998 Grammy Awards to make a speech about the Wu Tang Clan.
O.D.B. died Nov. 13, 2004, at age 35 after a drug-related heart attack.
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