WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif.
In his new documentary, “Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes”, Byron Hunt presents images, samples and interviews that he hopes will expose and take apart the structures of violence, hyper-aggression and misogyny present in much of today’s hip-hop.
Produced by Stanley Nelson, known for such documentaries as “Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind,” the 60-minute film is scheduled to air nationally on the PBS Series “Independent Lens” on Tuesday, February 20.
“I was doing a lot of work, spent a lot of years mentoring boys and young men about sexism and men’s violence against women and masculine identity and I had to find the right outlet to get us men to take a hard look at ourselves,” Hunt says while describing the inspiration for creating the film.
In the process of making the film, Hunt interviews a variety of scholars, hip-hop historians and a number of male rappers — including Public Enemy’s Chuck D, Talib Kweli, Mos Def and Busta Rhymes.
While the film is not a crusade to change the face of the mainstream music industry, Hunt says he hopes that the film will inspire viewers to open their minds and be self-reflective. “It’s up to us as consumers to challenge some of the representations of masculinity that we see in American culture,” he says. “We have to start saying, ‘I don’t buy into this idea that a man is supposed to be violent or sexist or homophobic.’”
