Sample This (2012)

Sample This is a documentary about The Incredible Bongo Band, the group who created Apache, a song which had a great influence on hip-hop music years later.  Unfortunately, this documentary suffers from a lack of focus.
Let's begin with the presence of Gene Simmons.  While he has a great voice for narration, Gene Simmons has very little (if any) business being in a documentary about hip-hop.  While his appearance is eventually explained, it still doesn't bear enough of a connection to the subject to satisfy me.  Thankfully, there is a good deal of interview footage with people like Questlove and Grand Wizzard Theodore, which does give this doc some element of credibility.
The documentary covers a range of topics through interviews and some archival footage.  It looks at the cultural background of the 1970s, provides profiles of the band members and their producer, and finally gets into the influence of Apache on hip-hop culture via artists such as DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash.  For me, this wide view of the subject makes this documentary suffer.  While the stories of things like political assassinations and music production are somewhat interesting, many of them have very little connection to hip-hop culture, which is supposedly what this documentary is all about.  I was left feeling frustrated to find that the parts I wanted to see only made up the last half hour or so of the film.
Sample This is an interesting documentary that examines some interesting people who unknowingly changed the culture of music.  However, if you're most interested in the song itself and its influence, there's a lot of irrelevant material you'll have to sit through.  There are many better films and documentaries on the subject available, and they won't make you wait for the payoff.