Glimpse Into The Way It Was

This week we had the pleasure of attending a very special evening at Sunshine Cinema of rare and previously unscreened documentaries on early hip hop in New York City. The screenings were followed by a panel discussion with the directors and with hip hop legends Afrika Bambaataa, Big Stretch, and our dear friend, the inimitable, Schoolly D.	“Wreckin Shop: Live From Brooklyn” (1991)
“Big Fun in the Big Town” (1986)	With all of these documentaries centered around New York, it was amazing to take this trip back in time and see the city as it was then, and to see all of the enthusiasm and excitement around hip hop at the time. New York is now a different place altogether, but that’s another discussion…
It was also amazing to search for these clips for this blog post and to see that they can now be viewed in their entirety on youtube, whereas for so many years these films were passed down on VHS and were impossible to find. Some of the more well known hip hop movies from that era have always been in the mainstream, such “Style Wars“, “Tougher Than Leather” and “Wild Style” but these were rare and, along with the rest of the audience, we were glued to our seats for 4 hours and were happy to be in attendance. Many thanks to our friend, and the organizer of the event, video journalist, Andreas Vingaard.	“Beat This” (1984)
Director, Dick Fontaine’s original Zulu Nation badge given to him by Afrika Bambatta in 1985