Hip-Hop
9 Episodes
Celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of hip-hop with this mixtape of the cultural phenomenon’s finest movie moments, featuring a stunning line-up of legendary musical figures including A Tribe Called Quest, Grandmaster Flash, Public Enemy, Tupac Shakur, RZA, Nas, Ice Cube, MC Lyte, and DJ Kool Herc. It was Herc who, at a Bronx dance party on August 11, 1973, first used two turntables to create an instrumental “break beat,” an innovation that sent the crowd wild. This modest New York origin story inspired an unparalleled nationwide, then global, explosion encompassing music, dance, public art, fashion, and, eventually, cinema. This dynamic program spotlights the many ways that hip-hop has intersected with film, showcasing raw early documents of the scene’s key players, intimate and informative portraits of musical expertise and technical wizardry, and definitive, star-studded evocations of the culture’s impact.
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01:01Episode 1Hip Hop Teaser
Episode 1
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1:21:56Episode 2Wild Style
Episode 2
Directed by Charlie Ahearn • 1982 • United States
Starring Lee Quiñones, Lady Pink, Fab 5 FreddyThe original hip-hop movie, WILD STYLE was the first feature film to document the scene’s music, break dancing, and street art at its inception. Through the eyes of a subway tagger named Zoro (played...
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1:09:22Episode 3Style Wars
Episode 3
Directed by Tony Silver • 1983 • United States
Starring Cap, Daze, DondiAn essential record of 1980s street art, this landmark documentary follows graffiti greats like DONDI, Seen, and one-armed writer Kase2 as they turn New York City and its subway system into a sprawling, spray-painted wonder...
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1:28:10Episode 4Fear of a Black Hat
Episode 4
Directed by Rusty Cundieff • 1993 • United States
Starring Larry B. Scott, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Rusty CundieffGangsta rap gets the Spinal Tap treatment in this gag-a-minute mockumentary about a controversy-inciting trio with a penchant for outrageous headwear, questionable lyrics, and a s...
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1:56:08Episode 5Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Episode 5
Directed by Jim Jarmusch • 1999 • United States
Starring Forest Whitaker, John Tormey, Cliff GormanJim Jarmusch combined his love for the ice-cool crime dramas of Jean-Pierre Melville and Seijun Suzuki with the philosophical dimensions of samurai mythology for an eccentrically postmodern take o...
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1:11:22Episode 6Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme
Episode 6
Directed by Kevin Fitzgerald • 2000 • United States
Starring Muhammad Ali, Planet Asia, BahamadiaGo deep inside the world of improvisational rap in this explosive look at the music and history of 1990s underground hip-hop culture. Packed with rare and archival footage of some of the most amazin...
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Scratch
Episode 7
Directed by Doug Pray • 2001 • United States
With insight and verve, this illuminating documentary explores the world of the hip-hop DJ: from the birth of hip-hop, when pioneering DJs began extending breaks on their party records (which helped inspire break dancing and rap), to the invention of ...
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Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap
Episode 8
Directed by Ice-T and Andy Baybutt • 2012 • United States
Starring Ice-T, Dr. Dre, Ice CubeThe craft. The history. The power. All these elements of the hip-hop movement are discussed with codirector Ice-T and the legends he interviews—including Nas, Eminem, Mos Def, Kanye West, Chuck D, KRS-One...
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1:21:59Episode 9Jamel Shabazz Street Photographer
Episode 9
Directed by Charlie Ahearn • 2013 • United States
Starring Jamel Shabazz, Fab 5 Freddy, KRS-OneIn the infancy of hip-hop, Brooklyn-born photographer Jamel Shabazz documented the pioneers of music and style who would launch an enduring worldwide phenomenon. In JAMEL SHABAZZ STREET PHOTOGRAPHER, ...
