[Documentary] PBS: Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

Nikolasv | 7 points | Nov 07 2016 04:01:06

[Documentary] PBS: Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes | Megalinks MegaDB [Documentary] PBS: Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

PBS Independent Lens HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats & Rhymes Filename: PBS Independent Lens.HIP-HOP.Beyond Beats and Rhymes (2007).HDTV.XviD.Ekolb.avi Size: 466 mb

https://mega.nz/#F!t8ljWaKK
Key: !c7DSYC0P0N0pOP3kIGVq0A

Synopsis:

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/hiphop/film.htm
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.

Sparking dialogue on hip-hop and its declarations on gender, HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes provides thoughtful insight from intelligent, divergent voices including rap artists, industry executives, rap fans and social critics from inside and outside the hip-hop generation. The film includes interviews with famous rappers such as Mos Def, Fat Joe, Chuck D and Jadakiss and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons; along with commentary from Michael Eric Dyson, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Kevin Powell and Sarah Jones and interviews with young women at Spelman College, a historically black school and one of the nation’s leading liberal arts institutions.

The film also explores such pressing issues as women and violence in rap music, representations of manhood in hip-hop culture, what today’s rap lyrics reveal to their listeners and homoeroticism in hip-hop. A “loving critique” from a self-proclaimed “hip-hop head,” HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes discloses the complex intersection of culture, commerce and gender through on-the-street interviews with aspiring rappers and fans at hip-hop events throughout the country.

[-] Nikolasv | 3 points | Nov 07 2016 04:08:28

This is very good and disturbing documentary. It examines how hip hop is the vanguard for hyper-masculinity, fetishizing violence, misogyny, homophobia(the filmmaker tries to even confront Busta Rhymes on this and he didn't co-operate), lionizing black on black crime, gross materialism and just about every other negative value you can think of it. At one point the film points out the self-depiction of black people and women by hip-hop is not any better than that the stereotypes of racist whites during the height of slavery, or as seen in films like the original "A Birth of a Nation" made back when the KKK was the most powerful American civic organization.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/hiphop/gender.htm
"One of the disappointing things about 'Tip Drill', and that whole genre of music videos is that they have taken a view of women of color that’s not radically different from the views of 19th century white slave holders." (3:55)

And:

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/hiphop/masculinity.htm
For many young men and boys, hypermasculinity is inextricable from race and class. Anti-violence educator Jackson Katz explains it: “If you're a young man growing up in this culture and the culture is telling you that being a man means being powerful… but you don't have a lot of real power, one thing that you do have access to is your body and your ability to present yourself physically as somebody who's worthy of respect. And I think that's one of the things that accounts for a lot of the hypermasculine posturing by a lot of young men of color and a lot of working class white guys as well. Men who have more power, men who have financial power and workplace authority and forms of abstract power like that don't have to be as physically powerful because they can exert their power in other ways.”