All language subtitles for Fight.the.Power.How.Hip.Hop.Changed.the.World.S01E01.The.Foundation.1080p.HDTV.H264-DARKFLiX

This program me contains some strong
language and discriminatory language.

I watched a white officer
assassinate a black man,

and I know that tore your heart out.

Ancl I know it's crippling

and I have nothing positive to say
in this moment...

...cos I don't want to be here.

But I'm responsible to be here
because it wasn't just Dr King

and people dressed nicely
who marched and protested

to progress this city
and so many other cities,

it was people like my grandmother,
people like my aunts and uncles,

so I am duty-bound to be here
to simply say

now is the time
to plot, plan, strategise,

organise and mobilise.

# I feel so blue

# And I feel... #

2020, and the Black Lives Matter
protests wouldn't have happened

if it wasn't for hip-hop.

# What am I living for? #

The culture informed and brought
together generations of people

from different backgrounds
for this moment.

# My baby... #

Rappers have tried to highlight
injustice in their art

since clay one.

CHANTING

We need justice!

2020 is very much a reflection
of hip-hop

because hip-hop had been that CNN.

These are the issues,
these are the problems.

# Yeah, yeah, come on, baby... #

Hip-hop is a part of a movement of
black music that started in slavery.

# Yeah... #

There's always been
some kind of protest music.

This music, this culture,
it would not look, sound, taste,

smell like it does today
were it not for history.

Hip-hop was created
by the oppression

because it was our arts that
defended us against the oppression.

CHEERING

It has been a broadcast culture
for us to speak truth to power.

There is the President.

Hip-hop has saved lives.

If you think the world is crazy now,

imagine what it would be like
if there wasn't no hip-hop.

# Yeah, yeah, come on, baby... #

Black Lives Matter,
people protesting,

this is all, like, stuff
Chuck and Flav was talking about

back in the '80s, early '90s.
Like, fight the power.

Playback!

# Come on and get down

# Come on and get down

# Come on and get down

# Come on and get down

# Fight the power
Yes, yes, yes, yes, y'all

# Fight the power
Yes, yes, yes, yes, y'all

# Fight the power
Yes, yes, yes, yes, y'all

# Fight the power
Yes, yes, yes, yes, y'all

# Fight the power
Yes, yes, yes, yes, y'all

# Fight the power
Yes, yes, yes, yes, y'all

# Fight the power
Yes, yes, yes, yes, y'all

# Fight the power

# We've got to fight
the powers that be. #

SIREN

MUSIC: It's just Begun
by The jimmy Castor Bunch

1520 Sedgewick Avenue
is where Kool DJ Herc

is asked by his sister, Cindy,

to come out and play music
for her jam, for her party.

Some say it was
a back-to-school jam,

some say it was a birthday party,

Cindy says it was
a back-to-school jam.

This is the beginning of hip-hop.

The beginning of hip-hop
is a back-to-school jam.

# Day or night, black or white

# That's the scene... #

The ingenuity of DJ Kool Herc
was the spark

that ignited this beautiful
art form called hip-hop.

# Dynamite

# We had fun... #

When I say hip-hop,
I'm talking about the DJ, the MC,

the graffiti artist and the b-boy.

MUSIC STOPS

To understand how this movement
emerged from the poorest,

most depressed borough
in New York City,

you need to go back
to the beginning.

The spirit of hip-hop
was born in the 1960s.

That was the decade I was born in.

The air of resistance and turbulence
helped create hip-hop.

If a negro baby is born, and this
is true also of Puerto Ricans

and Mexicans, in some of our cities,
he has about one half as much chance

to get through high school
as a white baby.

I think we can do better.

I don't want the talents
of any Americans to go to waste.

I was raised to be an artist
from ground zero, 1960.

Your existence around you
grooms you, trains you, teaches you.

CHEERING

My earliest memory growing up
is when

President john F Kennedy
was assassinated.

I remember laying underneath
the ironing board

when my mother used to be
ironing clothes

and it just stuck in my head -
the funeral, the whole procession.

A few years later, his brother,
Robert Kennedy, was shot and killed.

Malcolm X was shot and killed.

Ancl then Martin Luther King
was shot and killed.

I can remember Dr Martin Luther
King had got assassinated

and that was the first time that
I seen my father, he actually cried.

That was the beginning of me
just understanding

black people's role in society.

EXPLOSION

The assassinations, the Vietnam War,

knowing family members that were
going off to the Vietnam War,

being drafted
in front of our own eyes.

ARTILLERY FIRE

My mother would say
at an early age, you know,

"This war is going on
so I think, you know,

"you should be
a conscientious objector."

Can you tell us, champ,
why in your view

you deserve to be exempted
from military service?

No. I have nothing to say.

Everything that's been said
is in the newspapers.

I was privy to all those things
that were going on in the 1960s.

Ancl they had a profound effect
not only on me

but our community that we lived in.

SIREN

REPORTER: Poverty, unemployment
and frustration

led to four days of rioting,
burning, looting and killing

that had never been seen before
in America.

There were riots almost
every single summer in the '60s

and it was because the social
and justice system

was just as bad then as it is now.

Ancl we were trying to get our
rights, we were trying to live

in spite of all the madness that was
taking place within our communities.

People are just getting tired
of being pushed around

by you white people, that's all.

SIREN

What happened is just a prologue

because whites still don't believe
that black people mean it

when they say that we want power,

we want black power.

MUSIC: Time To Make A Change
by Lewen, Wikstrom and Blaize

The civil rights movement was killed
when they killed Dr King.

The only movement now
that was available

was the Black Power movement.

This country has never cared
about black people. That's right.

They don't give two damns about us
and all of us always turn around

worrying about what's good
for America, what's good...

Later for America.
What's good for black people?!

That's what we want to know.
CHEERING

# It's time to make a change

# Time to make a new beginning... #

The whole thing was, before we
can talk about making a change

in the outer world,
we've got to clean up our world,

and so that was the mission.

# Time to make a change... #

I remember the Black Panther Party
would go to Manhattan

and was serving lunches to kids
in the summertime.

# We can't go on like this
any more... #

Later on, the Nation of Islam were
having their movements in Harlem

and around the New York City area.

# The men with the power

# A dreary chosen few... #

You had the Nation of Islam
backing you,

you had Minister Louis Farrakhan
teaching you about yourself.

Allahu Akbar!

You had real Christian ministers had
you believe Jesus was a black man.

All the Bible characters
were African.

# What have we become? #

The roles of our black political
leaders and religious leaders

played a role in the consciousness
of hip-hop.

That knowledge of self,
pro-black message.

I am!
CROWD: I am!

Somebody!
CROWD: Somebody!

Right on!
CHEERING

# Time to make a new beginning... #

This was a period where we were
breaking out of that shell

and we were coming forth
and we were seeking power

and we really felt that we had
the system on its heels.

Violence is a part
of America's culture.

When the revolution comes.
When the revolution comes.

When the revolution comes...

As that consciousness
was raised with people saying,

"Well, we're asking questions
that ain't getting answered

"by the society, at least we need
the music to say something."

When the revolution comes.
Revolution.

When the revolution comes.
When the revolution comes!

So it was a snowball effect.

Black snowball effect
in our neighbourhood especially,

so obviously it bled to the music
and it reciprocated back and forth.

Ancl blood will run through
the streets of Harlem

drowning anything without substance
when the revolution comes,

when the revolution comes,
when the revolution comes.

When the revolution comes!

One of my most famous poems
was When The Revolution Comes.

I didn't make that line-up,
that was a line that a lot of folks

were using as a preface to something
we were hoping was going to come,

so I took that line and blew it up
and just talked about

a bunch of things that should take
place when the revolution comes.

Speak not of revolution until you
are willing to eat rats to survive.

When the revolution comes.

When the revolution comes!
When the revolution comes.

When the revolution comes, guns
and rifles will be taking the place

of poems and essays.

I noticed that when you hit people
with thoughts they've already had,

they will gravitate to you
that much more.

When the revolution comes!

The Last Poets were like your uncles

who definitely laid out
the groundwork.

Poets were always going to give you
the dirty, dirty on everything.

The truth. That is very important
not only in the realm of hip-hop

but in the realm of artistry.

When the revolution comes, Jesus
Christ is going to be standing

on the corner of Lenox Avenue
and 125th Street.

The whole environment in black
music, '69, '68 maybe, to '74,

is amazing.

And all these things
are connected to social commentary.

You've got kids that can't eat
and they're robbing and stealing

and doing what they have to do and
if you don't do something about it,

we're going to lose the country.
There's a new survey out today...

We don't want a survey. The survey
is out there in the street.

APPLAUSE

African Americans are able to turn
on the radio or put on a record

and listen to Marvin Gaye,

listen to Stevie Wonder
talking about living in a city

and what is it like,

and deal with these issues of a new
kind of discrimination and decay.

# Time is truly wastin'

# There's no guarantee, yeah

# Smile is in the makin'

# We've got to fight
the powers that be... #

For those artists -
Marvin, Stevie, people like that -

it's like, "We can party and we can
sing and dance and whoop it up."

You know what I mean? "But we have
to address what the fuck is going on

"around us at some point if you
have any consciousness inside you."

# And when I rolled with the punches
I got knocked on the ground

# By all this bullshit
going down, hey... #

The lsley Brothers make a record
called Fight The Power.

That record as a growing teenager,
me looking around,

reading around, seeing around,
whatever, coming up,

that stuck with me.

It not only stuck with me,
it stuck with everybody.

# Fight it, fight the power.

# Ha, fight it

# Fight the baby, baby,
baby, baby... #

Fight The Power is already...

It's in our skin,
it's in our psyche.

# Fight the power... #

We're all being influenced
by the music of the time.

It's the template for you
to voice your struggle,

for you to voice your oppression,
to voice what's not right.

# Fight it, fight the power... #

For me, soul music was cool,
R&B was cool,

but rock music was like
the Incredible Hulk.

"Boof, ba-ba, ba-rargh!"

It had this powerful attraction
and, as a kid,

I was looking for anything
that can make me feel stronger

than my environment.

By the time you get to the 1970s,

you still have organising by
explicitly political organisations.

The Panthers are still in operation,

the Young Lords - a Puerto Rican
nationalist organisation

rooted in the Bronx.

But they're also
being targeted by the FBI.

Do you feel the nation
is in trouble?

I think very definitely it is.

What is the answer?

The answer is vigorous
law enforcement.

That's the only answer?
That's the only answer.

How about justice?

J Edgar Hoover
is the Director of the FBI

and he has an enormous amount
of power.

But perhaps the most notorious
efforts of Hoover

is something called Cointelpro.

It's essentially
a counterintelligence organisation

designed to engage in surveillance.

Now, it just so happens, the most
well-known target of Cointelpro

is all of the groups that fall
under the umbrella

of the Black Power movement.
Namely, the Black Panther Party.

They want to get rid of me because
I'm saying something that might

wake up some other exploited people
and some other oppressed people,

and if all these people
ever get together,

then these pigs that are exploiting
us will run into the lake.

That's why they want to
get rid of us.

Cointelpro's first tenet
was to destroy

what they called
the "black Messiah."

Ancl the one that they saw the most
dangerous was Fred Hampton Jr,

because Fred,
when he started talking about

bringing folks together,
that's when the state was like,

"Yo, this dude's got to go."

Anyone who went through
that apartment

could come to only one conclusion,

and that is that Fred Hampton

was murdered in his bed,
probably as he lay asleep.

I knew that there were two things
waiting for me -

either a bullet or prison.

I never had any fear, man.

To be honest, I felt like a fraud
because I hadn't killed nobody,

I hadn't shot no-one,
I hadn't choked anybody.

I had clone nothing but sit down
with my pen and paper

and write some poetry.

There were so many other people
who had clone work,

who had clone things
and got blown away.

Cointelpro was incredibly effective
at hastening or speeding up

the process of these various
Black Power groups falling apart.

Without that leadership,

without that fight and that push
that the Panthers demanded,

going into the '70s,
there were a lot of unknowns.

What Cointelpro
is not successful at doing

is really stemming the tide
of rising black consciousness.

So you've got to look at stuff like
the Black ls Beautiful movement.

It's incredibly effective
at highlighting

the beauty of blackness.

All of these things that had been
seen as negative before.

# Let the sunshine

# Let... #

At that particular time,

5th Dimension made a song,
Aquarius - Let The Sunshine In.

We were all asking for it.

# Let the sunshine

# Let... #

Black was beautiful, and Afro picks
and dashikis and stuff

came up out of
it seemed like nowhere.

# Let the sunshine
Oh, let it shine

# Let the sunshine

Having parents
who were both from Harlem,

I was becoming conscious
of things like, "What are we?

"Are we negro or are we coloured?"

And I remember
us seeing black people on TV...

...and my family would say,
"There's some coloured people on TV.

"Coloured people." So all of
a sudden, we were coloured.

# Let the sunshine
Hey, let it shine

# Let the sunshine in

# Open up your heart,
and let it shine on me... #

I remember having a summer
school class and this teacher,

it was a very cool brother,
"Yeah, man, come on in.

"Come on, young bloods,"

and he would give us books
on Africa.

That's not something
that was normally given to kids

in American schools.

# Let the sunshine
You've got to feel it... #

There was something that was
very empowering about that period.

# Let it shine on you

# Let me tell you one thing
Let the sunshine... #

I'm representing the freedom
of black people in America.

If I win, we're free.

I'm not Foreman, you know that?

I don't see a black man, I see you.
I see the White House.

LAUGHTER

I'm not the White House either.

I see something white.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

APPLAUSE

I stand before you today...

...as a candidate
for the Democratic nomination

for the presidency
of the United States of America.

APPLAUSE

Shirley Chisholm
was my congresswoman.

I'm from Brownsville and her office
was on Eastern Parkway.

She was very inspirational,

in the sense that
she became an embodiment

of this black consciousness mood.

It was very palpable.

No-one thought she could win,

but the fact that she was able
to be on a platform

and articulate for black people
in that space was quite powerful.

Join me in an effort
to reshape our society

and regain control of our destiny.

The attention that she generated
was extraordinary.

CHEERING

I remember thinking, you didn't
really see black people on TV

who weren't singing.

She's also representative
of the fact that in New York

in the '70s, there was a huge influx
of Caribbean folks.

TRAIN HORN HONKS

REPORTER: In the past 15 years,
two million middle class

have fled New York
and set up home in the suburbs.

Two million poor have flooded in.

During the '705,

the financial woes of the city
led to people leaving,

so with that exodus
came the influx of black,

Hispanic and other ethnicities
to the city.

We'd have Trinies,

Bajans, Jamaicans,

all coming in as a wave, really.

REPORTER: They came in search
of the prizes promised

in the American dream.

Instead, they and their families
inherited

this devastated piece of the Earth.

All the tenements
were stacked and packed

with so many people coming through,

coexistence was a little difficult
because of the way

we were fed all these,
like, negative, um...

...attitudes.

I was 160 pounds of curious,

anxious Puerto Rican

so going out into the streets
was real tough.

REPORTER: There is a crime of
violence committed in New York City

every four minutes.

Last year alone, there were
more than 1,500 murders.

SIREN

It was a time when the violence
through gangs in New York

was at its zenith.

You had thousands of gangs
and they fought over territory,

and it was violent
and it was destructive.

I remember a time
visiting New York in '74

and seeing these gangs
very much dressed like...

Almost like the Warriors gear.

But the Warriors was kind of silly,
it was a goofy thing.

These were the real Warriors.

Ancl it was intimidating,
it was frightening.

There's an expression they say,

it's a terrible blow but that's how
it go. So you see somebody get hurt

and they go, "Eh, it's a terrible
blow but that's how it go."

You didn't have a fear of death
because death was always around you.

SIREN

Growing up in the Bronx mid-'70s,

I was in the middle
of the heroin epidemic.

You'd see a lot of empty
hypodermic needles

and people nodding
all over the place.

They'll knock on your door
and want to get some water

so that they can mix up
their little dope.

# But I'm feelin' all right... #

Not really good for kids
to be raised up in.

As I talk to the people
from New York State,

I realise the need for money
to deal with this problem.

I am glad that,
in this administration,

we have increased
the amount of money

for handling the problem
of dangerous drugs sevenfold.

The policies that come out
of the Nixon administration,

particularly those policies
that are focused

on the war on drugs, on crime,

are actually designed
to punish black people.

We have an accounting of this.

The war on drugs was some bullshit.

But the knowledge of how
we were being manipulated

through these different things
we learned later on.

Back then, I was an ignorant kid.

There's a philosophy
by Daniel Patrick Moynihan,

who ultimately ends up
being New York's Senator.

In this memo, he says,
"I think these black communities

"would benefit from a period
of benign neglect."

It accurately captures the attitude

that administrations have
towards these areas

that are disproportionately black.

REPORTER: In a city where
there are four murders a clay,

they're now thinking of the
unthinkable - laying off policemen.

We knew that the situation
was clire and stressed.

We saw the heroin addicts,

we saw the institutions
around us crumbling.

We saw this at ten years old.
It was obvious.

But we didn't see our environment

for what mainstream
may have seen the Bronx as.

We saw the Bronx
not according to the environment,

but according to who we were in it.

MUSIC: It's just Beginning
by The jimmy Castor Bunch

DOG BARKS

Growing up in that New York,
the police were not as attentive.

There was a lot of sense of, like,
"I can get away with a lot.

"If no-one stops me, I can get away
with a lot of shit."

# Watch me now

# Feel the groove

# Into something

# Gonna make you move... #

I remember at one point
there was two guys

stopping graffiti in New York.

Two guys.

In the '70s? Come on!

These are about the best cans
of paint on the market

and this is what they invariably
will go out and steal.

They never pay for their paint,
they'll steal it.

You'd be on the subway and you
wouldn't know what stop you...

I mean, cos everything was painted -
all the windows were covered

with graffiti, and the insides
of the train as well.

# You've got to do your thing,
you've got to do your thing... #

So it was a free rein.

The most amazing thing in the hood
is to go to the train yards

and put your name up
on the side of a train

and then watch the train go by
the next clay.

This is it!

Here we go! Here we go!

WOO!

This is it!

This is what we was doing
in the hood. We was having fun.

# It's just begun... #

Those trains were going from
the outer reaches of East New York

burnt to the ground,
crisped to the ground,

and ending up in the Bronx,

but in between going through
the heartland of Manhattan.

You reached at that point
4.5 million people in one day.

That's more than some people
can do today with social media.

Graffiti art is probably the biggest
revolutionary tool we have.

It's the propaganda of the movement,
it's the visual of it.

Hip-hop-aganda.

HE LAUGHS

I understood how cars
move in and out of sight,

that kinetic motion creates
for a very mysterious "Whoomph!"

A flash of colour, it's exciting,
it's rebellious, it's, like...

HE GASPS

It was agitation, frustration,

in a system that was totally
in disarray, in pieces.

# It's just begun, it's just begun

# It's just begun,
it's just begun... #

People use that phrase,
the bad old days...

...but in a sense,
the creativity that made graffiti

is possible because the city itself
is not being taken care of

in a certain way.
There's a certain kind of,

"Let them do what they want to do,
we don't give a fuck."

# It's just begun,
it's just begun... #

In the Bronx, all you did was go to
a house party or basement parties,

so my cousins would take me
and we did everything together

and we were a large group.

# It's just begun... #

None of what people say the Bronx is
is what I experienced.

I mean, I just played outside
with my cousins, you know?

Ancl it was family.

You know, I think they just saw
and continue to see

the entire narrative.

# It's just begun,
it's just begun-gun-gun-gun-gun. #

The Bronx doesn't
have to be chaotic,

it doesn't have to be bombed out,
poverty ridden.

The Bronx is the Bronx

because of very conscious
and calculated decisions.

REPORTER: For nearly half a century,

this man has pushed people
around New York.

Robert Moses managed to establish
himself as a force in the state,

where he controlled
the Parks Department

and the bridges and tunnels.

He was very interested
in developing the suburbs

and wasn't that interested
in protecting the city.

REPORTER: Our city,
under the urgent direction

of our able planner of chaos,
Mr Robert Moses,

has not merely permitted
but encouraged municipal mayhem.

One of the most
destructive things he did

was build Cross Bronx Expressway.

It goes right across
the middle of the Bronx.

It tore through five or six
different neighbourhoods...

...and the chaos that created
and the flight that created

is one of the major reasons
why the Bronx suffered so much

subsequently in the '70s.

Out of all the boroughs
in New York City,

the Bronx was probably
the poorest borough,

and the city itself
was on the verge of bankruptcy.

REPORTER: As inner-city areas
become progressively less pleasant

to live in, those that can afford
to, move out to live in the suburbs.

A lot of local taxation revenue
moves out with them

and the city has therefore
fewer and fewer resources

to deal with an increasingly
poor population.

New York is struggling through
this massive budget crisis

and they reach out
to the federal government.

They're like,
"Look, we need help. Save us."

I do not think it's a healthy thing

for the federal government
to bail out a city.

The city has to lay off

and stop hiring

a number of employees

and so they get rid of

a bunch of Fire Departments.

New York is working

to move out of this crisis
by sacrificing its residents.

If you want to stay in town,
sit in a chair,

hold on to your buttocks,
pray to God,

and then wait for the Holocaust.

Fire! Fire! Fire!

SIRENS

SCREAMING

When slumlords and landlords
start burning down their buildings

in order to collect insurance money,

one of the things that we see
is that there are no

social protective services
that can shut these fires down.

The building just has to burn out.

Policies shape what is happening
in African-American lives

and communities at this time.

SIRENS

The system started cracking
at the school level

because the resources
that normally would go into schools

were stripped, were taken away. The
city didn't have it in the budget.

Our music programmes in schools
went by the wayside.

We didn't have instruments
to practise in schools any more

so, to quote Lord Jamar
from Brand Nubian,

we took the only thing in our house
that made music -

a turntable.

MUSIC: Everybody Dance
by Chic

The soundtrack to the city
of New York in the late '70s,

when I first came here to live,

was still held over
from what was going on

in the mid-'70s, which was disco.

Disco led to hip-hop

because hip-hop is like
the bastard child of disco.

Our version of a disco.

Every time you looked in the media,

they were always talking about
this place called Studio 54. Why?

It was women and money
and the rich people

and the athletes and the CEOs
and all the movie stars.

# Everybody dance
Do, do, do, do, do, do... #

So everyb0dy's perception
was New York City is epic.

# Everybody dance
Do, do, do, do, do, do

# Clap your hands,
clap your hands... #

The Bronx was burning,
Bed Stuy Do Or Die was a war zone,

Harlem was Harlem.
Hell up in Harlem.

So when we saw disco...

...we did disco in the streets
of New York.

Playing music, come dance,
we're doin' it ourselves,

we ain't got money but, listen,
for those three or four hours

it was beautiful.

We couldn't get into a disco.

We didn't want to wear
the pointy shoes and the suits

and dance like this, OK?

No. So we created our version
of a disco...

...and danced the way we want
to the music that we want

and dressed the way we want.

# Everybody dance
Do, do, do, do, do, do... #

You'd have people
who were abused at home,

parents abused them,
alcoholics, drugs,

and that was their escape
to get away from that,

to come to this place
which was sort of like a safe haven

to just express yourself with dance
and put everything behind you.

That was a way of expressing pain.

# Dancing helps relieve the pain

# Soothes your mind,
makes you happy again... #

As much as many people

actually discount it,
the disco era was a beautiful moment

because it brought people out
of the woodwork to want to dance.

# Everybody dance
Do, do, do, do, do, do... #

That led to a lot of, like,
proudness on that dance floor

and it was basically
the humble beginnings

of break dancing as we know it.

# Everybody dance
Do, do, do, do, do, do

# Clap your hands,
clap your hands... #

DJ Kool Herc was an innovator.

A Caribbean immigrant
like so many of the communities

in the Bronx at that time.

He revolutionised
how the music was played.

Ancl that inventiveness comes out of

being able to have that sound system
and play that for the people.

Herc had the sound system because
his father was in ajamaican band.

He used his system.

Herc would take this music
and what he called it, he says,

"I go to the best part of the record
to give it you."

He called it,
"I go to the yolk of the egg.

"I go to the yolk. I get the yolk
out. That's all you really want."

DJ Kool Herc, he didn't just play
the whole record,

he played the section -

the section of the record
that really got the energy in it -

the drumbeat. The drum breakdowns.

And those breaks eventually
led to the dance.

MUSIC: Galaxy
by War

When Kool Herc was bringing
this out into the park,

me and my little brother, Kenny,
was there.

I was eight years old.

So I grew up
listening to break beats in the park

from about eight years old.
We were b-boys and b-girls.

The records that I heard
on the radio

were now being manipulated
with two turntables.

There was a song I liked,

Galaxy by the group War,

that had a 15-second intro,

and they stretched it
to, like, four minutes,

and I was just floored.

MUSIC CONTINUES

I felt that we were saving ourselves
through that beat.

In other words, extend the beat
on the turntable,

make it longer than
three, four, five, six seconds,

make it into a minute.

A minute is a long time
in the ghetto.

And a minute of that beat
that makes you feel uplifted,

giving you
a self-therapeutic power...

...you want to extend that

because you want to live
through that movement of that music.

You go like this.
It's called the hump.

It's called the hump.

The first tracks
are old funk and soul classics.

Babe Ruth does a song
called The Mexican

that, for some odd reason,
appeals directly to b-boys.

MUSIC: The Mexican
by Babe Ruth

it just has just the right energy.
I call it, like, this galloping.

Like William Tell's Overture
or Wagner's Ride Of The Valkyries.

It's kind of music that screams,
"Get up! Move! Do something!"

And the first thing
you think of doing is to dance.

Herc didn't allow any gang activity.

Nobody could wear colours in there,
so you didn't have to worry

about being a Spade
or a Savage Skull,

and now the battle
was on the dance floor,

it was no longer, "Knuckle up.
Let's see what you got."

And you'd get into that circle
and it was sort of like gladiators.

You know, two people go in,
one person comes out.

Breaking wasn't one style, it was
all the different styles together.

You could take anything
and put it into your dance.

This is the beginning
that intrigued me

because it didn't seem to have
any constraints on it.

It was all, like,
a pot of cultural get-down.

You have poverty alongside
ready-made tools.

Those ready-made tools were
those turntables, those records.

We made something happen
with nothing,

and that's the beauty of it.

CHEERING

You had entrepreneurial Djs

putting on parties in the summer
in the parks

and they knew that there was this
whole audience in the Bronx

who couldn't go
to the discos downtown

because, A, they were too young,
they didn't have the money,

they didn't have the right gear,

so it was a built-in audience.

The block party scene, it was
like it was supposed to happen

because all of the things that
would stop it from happening

didn't happen.

I'll give you a perfect example.
There's a park jam.

There's over 500, 600 kids
out there.

Ancl the police drive by.

POLICE RADIO CHATTER

You know what the police saw
when they saw that?

They saw 500 kids in one place
that we know where they are.

They're not running
around the streets,

they're not
in the shopping districts

where we've got to
look for people robbing shit.

So it worked for the police
and it worked for us.

Djs initially are like
band leaders, right?

They were like Count Basie.

And then the same way in bebop

that people started singing
to those riffs,

how the vocalist
became front and centre

and how Count Basie moved
a little bit to the background,

that's kind of the same thing

that happened with the Djs
and the MCs.

You know, history doesn't
repeat itself but it rhymes.

Kool Herc had a tight squad.

Coke La Rock was the first guy
to actually rock the mic

and that was who everybody
wanted to emulate.

Who am I? Who are you?
Who am I? Who are you?

Who am I? I'm Caz!

ALL: So what? What do that mean?

I'm the baddest MC lover
on the hip-hop scene.

Early rap and rhyming was about
yourself. It was braggadocious.

"I'm this, I'm that,
I can do this and that,

"I've got this many this,
this girl love me."

You might write some rhymes
and make people dance.

Of course, you had crowd response -
throw your hands in the air,

wave 'em like you just don't care,
just to get the people motivated.

Everybody, everybody, say ho!
CROWD: Ho!

Ho! Ho!
CROWD: Ho! Ho!

# Well, I'm the master rhymer
with the bass in my voice

# I'll talk to you, girl,
until your body get moist

# It's just me on the mic,
I'm doing my job

# And like Pretty Boy,
you know I'm down with the mob. #

# I'm Prince, you know,
they call... #

The pioneers in the beginning,
they could have easily rapped about

the real things
that's right in front of them -

guns, drugs infiltrating
New York City in '78, '79.

# We only came here
to settle the score

# So let's give everybody... #

Ancl they said, "You know what?

"There's no way
that's going to be popular.

"We want to keep the party going."

# Here's a little story
that must be told

# About two cool brothers
that were put on hold

# They tried to hold us back
from fortune and fame

# They destroyed the crew
and they killed our name

# They tried to step on our ego... #

Initially it's about
putting on a party.

But within that, of course,
you are going to

inevitably be making
political statements

because you're engaging
with people who are struggling.

Ancl their struggle is inevitably
going to come up against

the powers that be -
the establishment.

# I'm KK Rockwell,
the girls call me fly... #

"Let's party together" -

that's a threat to the
establishment, believe it or not.

# Double Trouble is in the house

# Don't you know, Double Trouble
gonna turn it out, y'all... #

REP '

rhythmically rhyming
in spoken word,

breaking,

graffiti art, aerosol art,

and Djing were
four distinct cultures,

four distinct communities.

Kool Herc came and brought
all that together into one place.

Some years later, Love bug Starski
and Chief Rocker Busy Bee

started calling it hip-hop.

Hip-hop was a movement

created by, populated by

and spoke to working-class kids.

These were the kids that had
an attitude about themselves.

Hip-hop is coming from within us.

We were never not hip-hop.

We were always this from the time
we were born. We were always this.

It was the most important thing
in my life.

It was the first time
that I heard, you know,

black men sound empowered,
express their imagination,

express their creativity in a way
that made us all dream more.

It was important.

That was a shock to a nerdy, geeky
kid, but hip-hop empowered me.

"Oh, I can use this to not be afraid
to tell the world who I am."

Hip-hop is the creativity
and activity

that comes out of
the black neighbourhood

when everything has been
stripped away.

Mr President, did you hear
the people yelling

"We need some money"
when you passed through?

Yes.

REPORTER: jimmy Carter came to see
urban decay at its worst

and he predicted federal aid to end
more than a decade of devastation

in the South Bronx.

A couple of years after jimmy Carter
shows up at the South Bronx,

Ronald Reagan,
on his presidential campaign,

goes to the exact same spot.

Help! Help!

SHOUTING

Please help us!

Ronald Reagan wants to
take advantage of the fact

that his political opponent,
President jimmy Carter...

...has failed to enact his promises.

So it is a moment
of pure exploitation.

Today, the President blames
the mayor of the city and others...

What are you going to do?
What are you going to do for us?

I'm trying to tell you!

What can you? What can you?
Tell us what you are capable...

I am trying to tell you!

What I'm trying to tell you is,

I can't do a damn thing for you
if I don't get elected.

CHEERING

When Reagan comes in,

whatever programmes
helped working-class people,

that stuff, like, went out the door.

REPORTER: President Reagan, in his
televised speech on the economy,

proposed 83 major program me cuts.

It was another blow
to the South Bronx.

Reagan creates an atmosphere
that exacerbates

these pre-existing problems.

Under Reagan, as a borough,
we're more abandoned

and there were definitely a lot
of gangs flooding our community.

Seven homicides...

REPORTER: It's hard to imagine the
situation could deteriorate further.

The unemployment rate
among black adults

is double the average and climbing.

In many places, desperation
has turned to hopelessness.

The nation as a whole goes into
a deep recession in the early 1980s.

People across the nation
are feeling the pain.

They want two Americas -
they want the rich

and then they want the slaves,
and that's us.

We're not going backwards!

CHEERING

Ronald Reagan absolutely
taps into racism

to explain the economic problems

that white Americans
are facing in the nation.

It's because of the lawlessness,
it's black criminality...

...it's drugs, eventually,
and that has to be cracked down on.

Retribution must be swift and sure

for those who decide to make
a career of preying on the innocent.

It's a really twisted way of
explaining the economic problems

born not of what black people
are doing

but born of what capitalists
are doing.

Get back!

No!

SCREAMING

From the minute
Ronald Reagan was elected,

the United States
was a bad situation.

GUNFIRE

It becomes, in its way,
as turbulent as the 1960s

that I was born in.

The black community
was being attacked.

We get this massive escalation

in the hyper-militarisation
of the police

and the assault
on African-American youth

in a way that we hadn't seen before.

Growing up, I watched the cops
lock up my father.

My father was a hard-working man,

never been into crime.

As he was talking to the officers,
he was like, "I don't..."

Ancl they was like,
"English! English!"

My father is from Cuba.

Ancl I watched them put
the handcuffs on my father

and he's not tough,
he started crying in front of me.

I'll never forget that image.

I didn't know systemic racism,

I didn't know everything
that was happening to me.

Somebody had really
planned this out.

When we talk about
African-American frustration

with the American political system,

they are frustrated because it is
a system that, at every single turn,

has neglected them...

...and so we see this expressed

through an outpouring
of various symptoms, right?

Crime, violence, gangs,
things like that.

But we also see it expressed in an
outpouring of cultural production.

MUSIC: The Message by
Grandmaster Flash 8; The Furious Five

I remember I was at Billboard
magazine when The Message came out

and we had a little room
which you could play records in.

And, you know, I put it on...

Wow.

# It's like a jungle sometimes

# It makes me wonder how
I keep from going under... #

The minute you heard The Message,
you knew it was an important record.

Gil Scott-Heron-level stuff,
but by a hip-hop artist.

It was such a profound record.

# Broken glass everywhere

# People pissing on the stairs,
you know, they just don't care

# I can't take the smell,
can take the noise

# Got no money to move out,
I guess I got no choice

# Rats in the front room,
roaches in the back

#junkies in the alley
with a baseball bat... #

The way that he saw broken
glass everywhere, you know,

people pissing on his staircase
who don't care, I mean,

especially if you lived
in the projects,

I mean, like,
that's what you smelt every clay -

someday peed in the elevator,

you know,
there WAS broken glass everywhere,

so, you know, the song spoke
to what we were seeing.

# Watchin' all the cars go by,
roaring as the breezes blow

# A crazy lady living in a bag

# Eating out of garbage pails,
used to be a fag hag

# Said she danced the tango... #

The Message was really the
culmination of the last 25 years

that was thrust upon black folks.

# The bill collectors,
they ring my phone

# Ancl scare my wife
when I'm not home

# Got a bum education,
double-digit inflation

# Can't take the train to the job,
there's a strike at the station... #

My group wasn't the Happy Five,

it was the Furious Five,

so I've always been a high-strung,
angry-type individual.

# Don't push me cos
I'm close to the edge

# I'm trying not to lose my head,
ha-ha-ha-ha... #

When The Message came out,

that gave hip-hop a voice
and it actually grew up.

That was when it went
from the infantile stage

to a young adult stage.

# Cos it's all about money,
ain't a damn thing funny

# You got to have a con in
this land of milk and honey... #

The Message actually
talked about something.

It had, you know, the same feeling
of a Bob Dylan record

or a Marvin Gaye record.

A record with an actual subject
matter that meant something,

that people related to,
like, in their lives.

# I feel like an outlaw,
broke my last glass jar

# Hear them say,
"You want some more?"

# Living on a seesaw... #

The verse is "a child is born
with no state of mind,"

so that was inspired by the Stevie
Wonder song Living For The City -

"a boy is born in
hard-time Mississippi",

so this is my version.

# A child is born
with no state of mind

# Blind to the ways of mankind

# God is smiling on you,
but he's frowning too

# Because only God knows
what you go through

# You'll grow in the ghetto,
living second-rate

# And your eyes will sing
a song of deep hate... #

When I first heard that song,
I thought, for the first time,

"Wow, here's somebody
who's speaking what I feel.

"I can't get that
on any TV network.

"I'm not getting this
in the widespread medium."

You're hearing this voice of
somebody talking about

our experiences,
like I was with Melle Mel.

# Smugglers, scramblers,
burglars, gamblers,

# Pickpockets, peddlers
and even panhandlers

# You say, "I'm cool, I'm no fool"

# But then you wind up

# Dropping out of high school

# Now you're unemployed

# All null and void... #

The Message was, like,
going viral now,

so every floor you went down
in the projects was playing it,

every single floor.

You might get an occasional
Spanish Gran Combo

and then you get The Message.

When you went outside, every single
car was playing The Message.

You know, you would go to the party,

they would play that record
30, 40 times.

# I'm trying not to lose my head,
ha-ha-ha-ha... #

It was like a frenzy.

It was just like the snowball
effect, like, coming down,

getting bigger and bigger
and bigger.

There was nothing like it.

The Message, a hard-edged anthem
of the urban ghetto.

Flash and Five proved it
just wasn't party music,

but could be used to get
across a serious message.

The Message was the song
that took me over the threshold

from "let's have fun with this"

to "let's challenge ourselves
with the art form".

What The Message did

for me and my experience,
it can't be overstated.

# Here it is, bam!

# And you say, goddamn

# This is the dope jam

# But let's define
the term called dope

And you think it mean
funky now, no... #

Everything that Public Enemy
was doing at that time

was so important and so vital.

Black people as a nation is asleep.

Public Enemy is
an alarm clock rap group.

# Please don't confuse
this with the sound

# I'm talking about bass... #

What you're about to see and hear
may not be suitable for children.

It was a misconception that NWA

came out to sell gangster records
to white kids.

# One, two, three,
four, five, six... #

They was just trying to
tell the truth

to what they was in the middle of

for that authenticity.

# And everybody know another kilo

# From a corner from a brother,
keep another below... #

George Bush calls him sick.

Police groups want his album banned.

The man they're all talking about
is American rap singer Ice-T.

The press says gangster rap.

OK, gangster rap.

Ancl I'm the original gangster.

15-year-old Latasha Harlins,
shot in the back of the head

following a scuffle with
this Korean liquor store owner.

The police get there
an hour-and-a-half later.

He walks over Latasha's body,

took tea into the person
that killed her.

That's why the city mad.

# Yo, listen,
I see it on their faces

# First come, first serve basis

# Standin' in line,
checkin' the time

# Homeboys playin' the kerb

# The same ones that used to do herb
Yo, herb

# Now they're gone

# Passin' it on, poison attack

# The black word bond

# My man, Daddy-O, once said to me

# He knew a brother
that stayed all day in his jeep

# And at night, he went to sleep

# And in the mornin',
all he had was sneakers on his feet

# The culprit used to jam
and rock the mic

# Yo, he stripped the jeep
to fill his pipe... #