FRONTLINES

The Rap on Hip-Hop

Byron Hurt has lectured on more than 100 college campuses and trained thousands of young men and women on issues related to gender, race, sex, violence and the media. The experience influenced how he felt about the state of the music he grew up with and led to a film project that took him six years to complete.

His critically acclaimed documentary, "HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes," takes an uncensored look at the negative portrayals of women, stereotypical images of black masculinity and homophobic references that pervade hip-hop music and videos.

"I think more people than is widely known are upset about these images and these representations," Hurt, 37, has said. "People are really starting to tire of these very narrow and limiting representations of not only black men and Latino men, but also of black women."

"Beyond Beats and Rhymes" premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS earlier this year. Ford gave Hurt a grant to complete post-production and for educational outreach, including a 24-month tour to screen the film at historically black colleges and universities.

Hurt has also shown "Beyond Beats and Rhymes" to NBA players and community groups across the country. The reviews have been positive.

Sabrina Schmidt Gordon, the film's co-producer and editor, says it resonates differently with various audiences. Some people, she says, are glad that the film is out there for their children's sake; others are "thankful that someone is finally saying what they have been thinking all along."

www.pbs.org/independentlens/hiphop
www.bhurt.com
www.itvs.org/outreach/hiphop