 Hip-hop is the creativity and activity that comes out of neighborhood when everything has been stripped away. To understand how hip-hop emerged from the poorest, most oppressed borough in New York City, you need to go back to the beginning. Hip-hop and rap music entering its 50th year has a lot of things to say and a lot of stories to tell. I actually grew up in the South Bronx and many of us used to say they were leaving us to die, which is generous. Those traditions really helped inspire hip-hop because, like, under most times of duress and oppression, people will find their joy. For this film, we have a lot of voices that are usually not heard. Melly Melz wrote the message. I'll be doing it. The last poets, MC Light and Fat Joe, speak about the importance of hip-hop throughout the generations. We wanted to tell the story of hip-hop's role as speaking truths to power. And I think that now that hip-hop has become so mainstream, there's still this narrative, which I think is quite important, and we need to tell that story. The power of the music has allowed it to give people empowerment to fight the power. Whenever you're a person of color speaking a little bit louder than you've expected to speak, that's been considered controversial. But hip-hop has actually been able to say, you know what? We can speak loud, we can speak the word, we can speak the right word and make it happen.