The goal of the Star Stories with Tourè documentary podcast series was to recreate the incredible, unforgettable, larger-than-life, true backstage interactions music journalist Toure had with hip-hop and music icons during his two-decade-long career. Our objective was to bring to life in animation form Tourè’s treasure trove of stories, such as almost breaking Prince’s nose in a basketball game, playing a high-stakes game of poker with Jay-Z and nearly going broke, and the crazy, scary time Tourè was briefly kidnapped and threatened with torture by Suge Knight. These unpredictable and sometimes unbelievable stories reveal something interesting, funny, or honest about these legendary stars. The insight Tourè got into the mind of Kanye West while jewelry shopping two decades ago is like looking into a crystal ball of the chaos and controversy to come. We wanted to tell these amazing stories in a fun, exciting, and credible way in our version of behind-the-scenes.
(Star Stories with Toure’ Trailer - Watch here)
We brought Star Stories with Tourè to life through animation and live-action. Our first challenge was finding animators who knew and loved hip-hop culture and could capture the look and essence and authentically reflect the coolness of our iconic featured artists. We went through dozens of animators until we found the ones who got it. Next was storytelling. Tourè is a brilliant journalist and writer. His recollections were detailed and comprehensive. We had to turn great articles into great animated scripts, paring down the original scripts to keep the storyline, the color, and the crazy intact. Our animation budget was for a 5-7 minute script. The original scripts were tripled in length. We had to shorten Toure’s stories to fit into our budget. We changed our plan to part animation and live action; it worked.
In Star Stories with Tourè, we created a truly original series, different from other hip-hop 50th-anniversary documentaries.
