“Fight the Power”, comments how rap changed the United States

ARTE – FRIDAY MAY 31 AT MIDNIGHT – DOCUMENTARY SERIES

A documentary series on the political force of hip-hop culture that begins with the tears of one of its most committed rappers, Killer Mike, can only be of good quality. The four fifty-two minute episodes of Fight the power. How hip-hop changed the world take inventory of what rap has brought to the political debate in the United States, from the early 1970s, post-Black Panthers Party, to the 2020s with the Black Lives Matter movement.

It was during a conference of this organization which demonstrates against police violence that Killer Mike spoke, with sobs in his voice, after the death of George Floyd, suffocated by the knee of a white police officer in May 2020. The Atlanta rapper, rewarded this year with three Grammy Awards, calls on young people and his audience to “think, plan, demonstrate and organize”.

Taking inventory of the strong statements of rap artists, demonstrating the power of the texts and the commitments of entrepreneurs of this culture is the proposal of this series co-produced by another rapper, Chuck D, and the English public channel BBC. The leader of Public Enemy is also very present on screen to decontextualize, analyze or lead the narration… His authority, his credibility certainly weighed in the balance to obtain interviews with Eminem, LL Cool J, Ice-T, Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, Fat Joe, Roxanne Shanté, MC Lyte and Monie Love.

Birth in the Bronx

Drawing on numerous quality archives and interview excerpts, director Yemi Bamiro focuses over three episodes on describing at length the context in which hip-hop culture was born in the impoverished Bronx: ” Hip hop, CV Chuck D, it is the creativity that emerged once the inhabitants no longer had anything, everything had been taken away from them. »

This series is also an opportunity to review the American presidencies from Nixon to Carter, both George Bush and Bill Clinton, who, despite his passion for the saxophone and black music, passed the most repressive laws for African-American community. In this context, the rapper Tupac Shakur (1971-1996), son of a member of the Black Panthers, incarnation of the rebellion of young black people, is mentioned in 1994. Hip-hop has spread all over the world and entered in every home, because rappers and their record companies asked themselves the right question: “How do we sell the image of the black man in rebellion against society to the average American? »

Artists like Jay-Z or P. Diddy then changed course and appeared in their music videos “with beautiful cars, hot girls, stylish clothes”, in short the American dream with a big sound in the background and without much substance.