The community partnered with Mass Attraction to create unique content material, celebrating and main as much as the fiftieth anniversary of hip hop in 2023.
Earlier this 12 months, Showtime announced its collaboration with Mass Attraction to launch a large, multi-year content material initiative, Hip Hop 50, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the style and tradition. Now, viewers will see the primary part of this marketing campaign within the type of three new documentaries.
The initiative will have a good time and spotlight the quite a few points of hip hop tradition by way of a sequence of movies, podcasts, unscripted sequence, and digital shorts beginning this 12 months and main as much as 2023. It’s pushed by filmmaker, and Mass Attraction’s Chief Artistic Officer Sacha Jenkins, in addition to rapper and investor Nas.
The primary initiatives are scheduled to premiere on the primary three Fridays of December, in line with a press launch.
The primary documentary, Video Music Field, is directed by Nas, actual title Nasir Jones. The movie is a chronicle of the groundbreaking public tv sequence that showcased and premiered rap and hip hop music movies and tells the story of its host, “Uncle” Ralph McDaniels. Began in 1983, and nonetheless airing in the present day, McDaniels grew to become one of many tradition’s first tastemakers, introducing the world to acts like Jones, LL Cool J, Fats Joe, and Nicki Minaj within the early days of their careers.
“Hip hop’s progress and rise over what is going to quickly be 50 years is staggering,” Jones stated. “With influential companions like Showtime, we’re poised to convey hip hop’s best tales to life and encourage a mess of generations within the course of. It’s actually a blessing to be part of this motion that provides due reward to my neighborhood and the tradition.”
The piece will pull from practically 4 a long time of unseen footage from McDaniels’ private vault from the longest-running music video present ever. Video Music Field will premiere on Dec. 3.
Subsequent, Ricky Powell: The Individualist, a documentary on the well-known New York Metropolis photographer Ricky Powell, directed by Josh Swade. Airing on Dec. 10, the movie will illustrate Powell’s rise to worldwide fame by capturing a few of the most notorious figures throughout a interval within the Eighties and Nineties when hip hop ascended in public consequence. The photographer often known as “The Rickster” took pictures of the likes of Run DMC, The Beastie Boys, Jean Michel Basquiat, Andrew Warhol, and Madonna, simply to call a number of.
Swade has labored with Showtime previously; co-directing the 2016 documentary One & Done on future NBA All-Star, Ben Simmons.
The third documentary of the month is Rolling Like Thunder, directed by filmmaker and graffiti professional Roger Gastman. This movie takes a deep look into the key underground tradition of graffiti writing within the New York subway techniques. It should additionally reveal tales from legendary artists, rival graffiti crews, and the way the dangerous endeavors of tagging subway vehicles advanced from an underground sub-culture to influencing generations of progressive artists, in line with the press launch.
Rolling Like Thunder is ready to air Dec. 17.
Future initiatives from Hip Hop 50 may also embody Push It, a multi-dimensional mission that can deal with the various tales and contributions of ladies in hip hop, and Hits From the Bong, a documentary about West Coast rap trio Cypress Hill.
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