Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

[StarFish106]

HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats & Rhymes premieres Tuesday, February 20, 2007 as a special presentation of the Independent Lens series on PBS.

From the site:

"Filmmaker Byron Hurt, a life-long hip-hop fan, was watching rap music videos on BET when he realized that each video was nearly identical. Guys in fancy cars threw money at the camera while scantily clad women danced in the background. As he discovered how stereotypical rap videos had become, Hurt, a former college quarterback turned activist, decided to make a film about the gender politics of hip-hop, the music and the culture that he grew up with. “The more I grew and the more I learned about sexism and violence and homophobia, the more those lyrics became unacceptable to me,” he says. “And I began to become more conflicted about the music that I loved.” The result is HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a riveting documentary that tackles issues of masculinity, sexism, violence and homophobia in today’s hip-hop culture."

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/hiphop/schedule.htm to see when this will air in your local area.

[RedefinedDiva]

I'll be sure to watch this!

[Lyoness]

Thanks for this!!! I love PBS... I took a few Womens Studies courses to take a breather from science classes and labs and did a paper on the juxtaposition of Feminism and HipHop. It was a ton of fun.

Books you may like:

When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost
Joan Morgan

Check It While I Wreck It
Gwendolyn Pough

Black Feminist Thought
Patricia Collins

[Gina1201]

Originally Posted by Lyoness

Thanks for this!!! I love PBS... I took a few Womens Studies courses to take a breather from science classes and labs and did a paper on the juxtaposition of Feminism and HipHop. It was a ton of fun.

Books you may like:

When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost
Joan Morgan

Check It While I Wreck It
Gwendolyn Pough

Black Feminist Thought
Patricia Collins

Gwendolyn Pough is a Soror. She teaches at Syracuse University.

[RedefinedDiva]

I did a paper last semester related to this topic. It's still a work in progress. I hope to get it published in the fall. I'm excited about seeing this doc, as I am ready for a reform in hip-hop.

[Lyoness]

Originally Posted by Gina1201

Gwendolyn Pough is a Soror. She teaches at Syracuse University.

That's so awesome!! Deltas are doing it! Like a previous poster said this is such a timely if not long-overdue discourse in our community.

Also when I was doing research for this paper, she and some additional authors were collecting submissions for an anthology of work about feminism and hip hop. Its going in my "black feminism library".

I found this link on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw...ake+some+noise

[StarFish106]

last night? I know it comes on in different areas at different times but I was just wondering if anyone saw it. Very Very good and it needs to be like a 3-4 part series and spend more time discussing the topics he talked about. The filmmaker is a bruh and I really didn't need my hubby to talk to the tv to him when he showed that part...

But it can open very serious dialoge that needs to talked about in Hip-hop and in our community as well. He spoke to several young educated black men (we talking Ph.D's and under 35 looking ) about what this is doing to our black men. The violent, misogynistic and homophobic messages that are in hip hop today need to stop.

Please watch it if you get a chance

[neosoul]

Originally Posted by Lyoness

Thanks for this!!! I love PBS... I took a few Womens Studies courses to take a breather from science classes and labs and did a paper on the juxtaposition of Feminism and HipHop. It was a ton of fun.

Books you may like:

When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost
Joan Morgan

Check It While I Wreck It
Gwendolyn Pough

Black Feminist Thought
Patricia Collins

Met Joan Morgan when she came to speak at my alma mater, and me and my BSA execs brought her back for our hip hop summit... she rocked teh mic hard! "When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost" is a good book

[Lyoness]

Sounds like it was great documentary. I'm glad they had a real discussion. It comes on here on Sunday afternoon. Can't wait.

[TotallyWicked]

I so did not miss this...it was great!

Being a soc major I've seen loads of documentaries about MUSIC overall and masculinity (most of them with Sut Jhally in them), however they did seem very preachy.

I did like how they spoke to regular folk to get their opinion on it, I was concerned for those girls at BET's Spring Fling who did not find anything wrong with being called a B!tch because "I know he ain't addressing me" (done while men are filming their backsides)

I did enjoy how they explained who actually RUNS the music industry thus explaning why we hear the records we hear. I am hoping to get this DVD to show it to a local high schoo full of young black and latino men, who unfortunately have gotten sucked into the mentality the director was describing.

Ironic that they call out BET, when the show I was watching right before this (Top 25 Events that (Mis)shaped Black America) was on BET and they made no mention of their contribution to the black eyes Black America has been given. Chuck D said it best, "BET is the Cancer of Black Manhood".