The entertainment world is set to shed some light on the ’90s rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard — and a film project’s director has cast the perfect man for the part.
Michael K. Hall, who famously portrayed Omar Little in “The Wire,” will take the lead as ODB himself (real name Russell Jones).
The film, “Dirty White Boy” will center around Jarry Weisfeld, a former VH1 intern who was pulled into the orbit of Ol’ Dirty Bastard and the Wu-Tang Clan, and the events surrounding the last few years of the rapper’s life, Deadline reports.
Producers of “Dirty White Boy” said the film will focus on Weisfeld’s life as well as Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s.
“We both knew full well who Ol’ Dirty Bastard was but this story completely floored us. As filmmakers, we knew that this would make a great film and that Jarred Weisfeld would offer an actor a complicated and compelling character to play,” they said. “This felt to us like ‘Risky Business’ and ‘8 Mile,’ with equal elements of darkness, humor, and humanity.”
Ol’ Dirty was a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, a prominent hip-hop group that rose to prominence in New York in the early 1990s. Recently released FBI files linked the Staten Island rapper to a slew of crimes, including drug and gun peddling, along with two murders.
Along with Wu-Tang’s hits, ODB was also famous for a few solo songs, the most most popular being “Got Your Money.”
ODB died in 2004 from a drug overdose.