Tapes N’ Tapes
Silly graphics and haphazard organization aside, Walter Bell’s film Mixtape Inc.–which will tour the indie festival circuit before it lands on DVD–does a great job of explaining the origins and inner workings of the hip-hop mixtape game. The doc features over 70 quality interviews with the likes of Kay Slay and DJ Clue (who speak on their innovations, and their feud), Lloyd Banks and Fabulous, and old-schoolers Red Alert and DJ Bruce B, who drop the requisite hip-hop history. Truly hilarious moments include an interview with Curt Nice (who runs a mixtape shop from his mom’s basement in East Cleveland) and an awkward-as-hell freestyle from Kanye West and his boy GLC, who claims his main focus is “lookin’ fresh as hell,” despite looking straight out of a TJ Maxx clearance sale. Ooh snap. Marty B

We Are Famile
The adage “family is what you make it” couldn’t apply more preciously than it does to Daniel Smith’s band, The Danielson Famile. The group, formed in 1995 around Smith’s Rutgers University senior thesis, is comprised of his actual brothers and sisters (along with a few friends like Sufjan Stevens), but it’s obvious that “family” is always the message of Smith’s lifelong, Lord-pleasing work. Danielson: A Family Movie (HVE; $19.99) follows Smith’s six-album path while closely examining his faith. Most intriguingly, it illustrates the band’s penchant for making quirky pop without resorting to heavy-handed tactics to drive their point home. Perhaps that’s why Danielson was practically rejected by the Christian music community, instead finding a home on labels like Secretly Canadian. Thank God. Ken Taylor

Euro Trip
What do indie hip-hop artists do when they’re on tour? The same stuff y’all do. Listen to the iPod, smoke weed, attempt to bone chicks (and fail), sit around the hotel lobby feeling tired as hell. Which means that only the most die-hard Detroit rap addict will catch a buzz from Frank N Dank’s European Vacation (Needlilworks, $19.99). The documentary DVD was shot on J Dilla’s last tour before he died, but mainly centers on performances and quips from rap duo Frank N Dank. Live footage and an included CD of the group are hype, but the extras are pretty bland, save for an airport gab session with Dilla, Dank, and Rhettmatic trading stories about Biggie and Busta. Marty B