Showtime is set to premiere a new hip-hop documentary titled Word Is Bond and has most recently dropped off a new trailer featuring Anderson .Paak in promotion of the film. In the new clip, the Free Nationals frontman discusses his influences and makes a revelation about his musical origins, uncovering the fact that he almost took a different route as it relates to hip-hop.
“I consider myself someone that’s coming up out of the hip-hop culture. And when I really was trying to write music, I thought I was going to be an MC. I thought I was going to be a gangsta rapper,” he says in the video. “I was influenced by Snoop and Dre, and there was nothing bigger than that.”
He would also go on to cite evidence of his wide range of influences, “I love Radiohead’s stuff. I like sad white boy music, too. That stuff is all important to me, and it all goes into my artistry, but it’s coming from a hip-hop perspective. I feel like it’s coming from a drummer’s perspective.”
The documentary is directed by veteran filmmaker and chronicler of hip-hop culture Sacha Jenkins and will explore "the transformative power of lyrics in the world of hip-hop.” In addition to .Paak, Word Is Bond will include interviews with the likes of Nas, Pusha T, and Rakim as they discuss “the many dimensions the hip-hop poetics occupy.” Word Is Bond will premiere at 10 pm EST on the Showtime network on Friday, February 16th.