The Hip-Hop Fellow// Kenneth Price // USA // RT 79min
SAT 10/4 // Doors Open 8:00pm// Film Starts at 8:30pm
(Tickets give you free access to opening night party @ Lot45 sponsored by Hotel BPM *** MUST RSVP)
The Hip-Hop Fellow is a 78-minute documentary following Grammy Award winning producer 9th Wonder’s tenure at Harvard University as he teaches ‘The Standards of Hip-Hop’ course, conducts research for his thesis and explores hip-hop’s history, culture and role in academia. The film centers on the emerging significance of incorporating hip-hop studies into academic curriculum and spotlights the scholars and musicians at the forefront of preserving 40 years of hip-hop culture.
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DIRECTORS BIO
Kenneth Price is a North Carolina based Emmy Award winning filmmaker. The Hip-Hop Fellow is his second documentary with 9th Wonder and fourth feature film.
Price is best known for his extensive music video work with artists such as Mac Miller, Big K.R.I.T., Phonte, 9th Wonder, Rapsody, Buckshot, The Foreign Exchange, Skyzoo, Idris Elba and more.
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Conversation with Michael Holman following the screening.
Join us after the screening of Hip-Hop Fellow for talk back wtih pioneering Hip-Hop activists Michael Holman as he discusses the appropriation of Hip-Hop Culture by Academia, his personal & professional journey in Hip-Hop Culture, and the making of the first B-Boy/break dance film, Catch a Beat (1981).
ABOUT MICHAEL HOLMAN
HIP HOP
During the last 30 years, Michael Holman has worn a variety of hats in his unstinting career as a pioneering hip-hop activist: musician, filmmaker, artist manager, club promoter, journalist and critic, television producer, archivist, visual artist, and educator.
From the book The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip Hop, Dan Charnas wrote about Holman: …Fab 5 Freddy was a graffiti writer looking to break into the art world, and [Michael] Holman [was] a junior credit analyst on Wall Street by day, an art promoter by night. Holman…introduced Freddy to Jean-Michel Basquiat. Freddy, in turn, acquainted Holman with hip-hop.
Holman adopted Fab 5 Freddy’s quest to unite the uptown and downtown scenes. Just as Fred led Blondie to the Bronx, Holman brought Malcolm McLaren, the British impresario behind the Sex Pistols, to witness Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation DJs in their milieu, the Bronx River Projects. McLaren was both terrified and transfixed by the field trip, and asked Holman to bring the Zulus to safer environs – opening for his new punk-pop act, Bow Wow Wow, at the Ritz downtown. Holman assembled an unprecedented roster of DJs, MCs, breakers, and graffiti artists, and in September of 1981, all four elements of hip-hop played out before a stunned, enthusiastic White audience.
In the crowd was Ruza Blue, a British expatriate who ran McLaren’s SoHo boutique. Blue asked Holman if he could book that kind of show every Thursday night at her friend’s venue, a club called Negril. Holman drew in the Zulus to DJ, and Fab 5 Freddy to MC – in the classic sense of the term since Freddy didn’t consider himself much of a rapper.
By early 1982, the club was filled to capacity, and the fire department shut the Thursday parties down. Ruza Blue looked for a bigger place. Holman decided not to go with her. Instead, he embarked on a grander mission: to create a TV show that would be the hip-hop version of American Bandstand.
By early 1982, the club was filled to capacity, and the fire department shut the Thursday parties down. Ruza Blue looked for a bigger place. Holman decided not to go with her. Instead, he embarked on a grander mission: to create a TV show that would be the hip-hop version of American Bandstand. [Graffiti Rock].