All in all, this was a decent documentary for someone who knows nothing about hip hop. The rest of us were probably a little deflated by the end.
First things first: This documentary couldn't decide if it wanted to cover rap or hip hop. I see wrap and hip hop as being close cousins but not synonymous. Mary J Blige and jodeci are hip hop. Chuck D and Snoop Dogg are rap. If you're going to try to cover both in the same documentary, you have to be respectful of these different art forms that are closely related but appreciably different music styles.
That said, the first installment was excellent. It contextualizes the birth of Hip Hop and its meaningfulness to a generation. Sadly, if we are truly honest, that first decade was probably when most of the true consciousness ended.
For me, things kind of goes off the rails particularly in the last two installments by trying to turn it into political commentary superficially cloaked in the rap culture. While I don't doubt Chuck Dee's sincerity, the truth of the matter is that corporate hip hop wasn't closely interwoven into Black Lives Matter or any other significant social justice movements in the last 10 years. They were truly on the sidelines, occasionally making token donations here and there but never really getting their hands dirty. It is what it is.
The documentary also fails to look at the whole picture of rap/hip hop, which includes wildly popular but consciously bankrupt rappers like Lil Wayne and others who have absolutely no political consciousness or concern about the broader Black populace. Some of them even supported Trump and his hateful rhetoric. No matter how toxic, they cannot be ignored. They SHOULD not be ignored.
It's also largely silent on the hip hop of the 2000s when Kanye, 50 cent and others ruled. That is a disservice if you truly want to brand this as a full homage.
One thing in particular I have a problem with is the dangerously revisionist, "harmless" view of drug and gang crime that ravaged Black communities in the '90s. There's no doubt that cocaine came from outside the Black community, however, there has to be personal accountability WITHIN the Black community for our response to it. There were many people who got sucked up in the drug trade but they were also many who did NOT. I also highly challenged statements such as the one Al Sharpton made about every Black person he knew had a family member in jail. That's because his circle apparently was very limited.
Drug dealers of ALL races were horrific enemies of humanity. And YES that includes Black drug dealers. These weren't good fathers and providers who were suddenly ripped from their family dinner tables. Half of them didn't even know they had kids in the world, and the other half that DID didn't give a damn. The truth hurts, but somebody needs to be the grown up in the room and start speaking it. That's the only way we face the darkness and turn the tide. Black drug dealers like all the rest trafficked children, raped Black girls and women and perpetrating every possible inhumanity known to man. They deserved to be under the jail with 3 strikes. It should have been TWO!
So, it's definitely a good introduction but one cannot walk away from this documentary thinking they have a solid grasp on hip hop, or the complexities of the political landscape of the '90s and early 2000s.
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