By Kate Jonuska
Sometimes a lyric isn’t just words. Sometimes a video isn’t just people dancing. In the opinion of filmmaker, writer and activist Byron Hurt, what we consume from media and pop culture are actually messages about who we are, how to behave and our place in society, and he dissects that idea in regard to hip-hop culture in the film “Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes,” screening Tuesday at Colorado College.
“This film challenges everyone: consumers, artists, black, white, people who have issues with gays. It’s the kind of film that strikes a chord in many different demographic backgrounds,” says Hurt of his documentary, which aired at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006 and on national television in 2007. “Since that time, I’ve been on the road constantly showing the film and talking about the film. It’s amazing that it still has as much traction as it does.”
Perhaps its continued popularity stems from Hurt’s ability to cut away the veneer of hip-hop to expose the complex and often negative narratives underneath about masculinity, femininity, homosexuality, class and race ― narratives many don’t look deep enough to see.
“The process was to create a film that would be intelligent and entertaining, to borrow some of the aesthetic and look and feel of MTV and BET, but to flip that aesthetic so there’s a critique embedded there, too,” says Byron, who emphasizes that he’s in no way outside hip-hop culture even as he critiques it, calling hip-hop “the soundtrack of my life.”
CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the Oct. 26, 2009 Gazette.
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