“This music has a history of another side that ends up not going to the mainstream popularity of being important and being able to speak truth to power,” Chuck D says. “And you do have a lot of people in the industry right now who actually run the industry that kind of look at it like maybe the beef industry or selling product or something like that or whatever. It’s a numbers game. So we want to be able to teach and also be able to let people know this music has a lot more to offer than what they just think they learned it as having.”
The series is an international production with the BBC, proving the worldwide reach the music attained.
“It turned into a universal cultural language and religion,” he says. “It was able to rise up out of the concrete …and speak louder than a bomb.”
Killer Mike, Will.i.am, Monie Love, Ice-T, Roxanne Shante and MC Lyte are among the many artists interviewed for the project.