♪ ♪ Artworks is made possible in part by... And by... DEVIN: OG, Chris Cassius, Butch Dawson at the Ottobar, before COVID.

COVID changed everything.

But, you know, and then you've got the iconic group shot.

This was curated with another fellow artist, uh, Al Rogers helped curate it and it's funny because you have, you know, Bobbi Rush who's like working this exhibit right now but she's at work in the BMA as an employee and, uh, who's a good friend of mines.

DDm who I interviewed for the Hip Hop show, you got Dee Watkins who also wrote for the book, you got, um, Kondwani who named this piece, "You Can't Raid The Sun" so it's one of these things where I find that you know, Dee Dave who's one of the greatest comin' out of Baltimore who sadly was murdered but was a really good friend of mines, you know, and he gets to live out through this book and be a part of Hip Hop history in a sense.

It's like one of the last photographs I got of him.

Everything I do, if it's somethin' Hip Hop I want to make sure he's intertwined in it someway.

So rest in peace Dee Dave, go cop that book, "The Culture" ♪ ♪ CHARLES: So we're at the Baltimore Museum of Art, when you do any show I think it's important to tell the story of both local and international and domestic artists, because how can you tell the full story if you're not including the people who are actually from the city in which you're located in?

And I think this is for any museum, whether you're in Brooklyn, you're in LA, you're in Chicago, you're in Cleveland, there should be work represented of the people in that city because you don't thrive, you're not a part of the culture, literally, if you're not including the people who are here.

And Baltimore is a 63% Black city and to have like artists who are Black and Brown in the show, you, you got to consider that, you got to consider, uh, Baltimore's place in Hip Hop, you've got to consider Baltimore's place as far as culture in the contemporary art and that's kind of, like to do good work that's what you do and I think as an institution like the Baltimore Museum of Art, they're doing good work and trying to continue to do good work and push that and to do so is to be in touch with the artists who are here.

And it's important to know who these people are because that's what your city is, an ever-changing place.

DEVIN: You know, moving through Baltimore as an artist, life is a collaboration, we all lift each other up and I think that's what this exhibition is gonna do, I think it's gonna bring a lot of us closer together and bring more collaboration and then, and then start blurring the lines even more about what it, what it means to be a part of Hip Hop.

ASMA: Hip Hop is 50 years old and in that 50-year history are so many generations and so many different stories that we wanted to tell but we realized, we can't tell them all, so there's gonna be moments when people will walk through this exhibition and say, "Hey, where's blank?"

And we, we hope that those folks will understand that we're not trying to present the entire story, but we are as you're suggesting, trying to make sure that we're nodding to moments in time and creating this kind of tapestry that shows all of the different ways in which, you know, um, uh, Outkast in the south in the late '90s relates to Lil Nas X, you know, from two years ago and trying to create those interweavings.

For us, it was really important to talk about the history, the elders, the OG if you will, but then also bring it into this moment.

And that's what we decided to do by focusing on these last 20-plus years for Hip Hop because that's when you really see the big, big influence.

And what we did is we actually tracked the ways in which Hip Hop as a genre started to get more and more awards and more and more acclaim in things like the Grammys, that all started just around the year 2000 when you were able to start streaming music and when folks who weren't necessarily signed up with the big labels were able to distribute their music to the world at large, that's where Hip Hop really started to take hold in this grassroots kind of way and that's when the art scene started to get really interesting.

That's when artists really started to experiment and realize that, "You know what?

We can make our own rules, we can use what we have here at, on our street-side or we can take what's in our bedroom, we can make something new and I can show it to the world through social media and that's how I'm gonna be seen."

So that was to me the most important part of this Hip Hop story is the last 20-plus years.

DEVIN: Um, yes, you know, I got my first camera in 2013, taught myself from studying Gordon Parks and YouTube University, and unfortunately, um, a lot of people know my work from after the passing of Freddie Gray at the hands of Baltimore City Police Officers where one of my images appeared on the cover of Time magazine which would set the tone for my work over the next five to six years where I returned again with, um, another Time cover in 2020, um, after Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, so the, the work has always been ingrained in community, um, Baltimore obviously where I'm from, where a lot of my work is created but I've expanded the work and moving into other mediums to better understand who I am as an artist and what I want to say.

i-D Magazine reached out to me, um, in 2020, um, after my Time cover and that they were doing an issue called, "Uprising" and they wanted to highlight me for the, uh, for all the work that I do in the community but, you know, anybody who knows me, I'm all about community first so I really wanted to self-reflect on artists that I've been around, partied with, collaborated with or photographed, um, so instead of making the entire issue, um, in my section, in my article about me, I turned to my peers and that's what, um, inspired this shot, is a bunch of artists, you know, um, before COVID I, I was inspired by, I collaborated with, so instead of just looking at me, I pulled from Gordon Parks, "A Good Day in Hip Hop" you know, "A Good Day in Harlem", which he drew his inspiration from and I created this image, amongst other images that, you know, um, we dubbed, "You Can't Raid the Sun" to talk about the resilience in artists and growing up in Baltimore.

Anything I do, Baltimore's gonna be engrained in it, and sometimes Baltimore gets left out of the conversation, so when they reached out to me to be a part of this show, I was real adamant about you know, Baltimore staple inside of it, you know, from our club music, to our house music, the way we dance, our sway, I want to make sure that people can see that, you know, even if you, um, pick up the book, which you will have actual, all my throwback club pictures in it from where I used to party in local clubs and I talk about how we were influenced by the south wearing long white t-shirts at one point in time but how we used to dance all night and dance our pain away.

For the assignment, so when the BMA asked me to be about this, I'm very passionate about Baltimore, like, I've been here all my life, I talked to them just about the history and Hip Hop for me and what it looks like for me and, you know, one thing that always stood out, anybody that know Baltimore when you in the club, gotta get that club picture at the end of the night or before the night you gotta get a picture with your guys either holding your money, posted up real deep with everybody from around your way, you know, so you, you would be, you would be sweaty, you'd leave the dance floor get your club picture or, you know, as times changed we start maturing where, you know, we, we start listen' to more trap music, we was more, we was hustlin', so we wasn't dancin' no more, we would just post up, so I kinda, you know, wrote about, you know, um, the inspiration comin' from club music and the club where I used to dance real hard young but then as I got older I was bumpin' Jeezy and Gucci and I was more posted up like a statue in the club, you know, and these are like all my pictures from like 2006 comin' out of high school all the way up to like 2011 and I, I talk about, you know, I started off as just a fan of it but then when I got photography in my hand I actually start photographin' younger artists that was comin' up 'cause I grew up around a lot of local rappers and I wasn't photographin' them so I always now I always carry like a camera around me, a point and shoot and start documenting everything but as I got bigger as an artist and I knew that I had people like Swiss Beats and Black Thought and a lot of these artists that I have relationships with that follow me like shoot they might see some of my peers that are doing their thing and I can like uplift them using my platform, so I start photographin' and going to all the Hip Hop parties and I kind of did a photo essay about, um, you know, watchin' my friends like Butch Dawson who's also in that photo that's in the piece that, uh, uh, Amani Lewis did, she has a piece in this show about Butch Dawson too.

And you can see the, how everything aligns inside Baltimore because we all try to support each other and I think that's like the dopest thing about it to have Butch in the book, in my photo, but then a piece by Amani Lewis too.

You know, you got him like droppin' the mic.

ASMA: Baltimore has some of the best artists and creative minds in the world.

All of the artists I'm about to name are from Baltimore or the Maryland area and they are here because their artwork is featured in this exhibition of the best artwork that reflects the influence of Hip Hop in the 21st century.

So please make your way up Devin Allen!

(applause).

Charles Mason.

(applause).

Murjoni Merriweather.

(applause).

Ernest Shaw.

(applause).

These are just, um, incredible minds, I want to thank you, thank you for all that you do.

Thank you for your bravery and I hope you feel proud seeing your artwork here today.

CHARLES: Thank you.

ASMA: I need to give a special shoutout too, because there are stars in so many other areas of the artistic disciplines, the first is the first professor of Hip Hop music at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Wendel Patrick.

(cheering and applause).

Abdu Ali.

(cheering and applause).

Woo.

Woo.

What Wendel and Abdu have done is create something magical in the soundtrack that you will be hearing throughout the exhibition.

(piano music).

WENDEL: He was doing something that's, uh, is known as, um, people refer to it as a merry-go-round technique and that was then taken and expanded on and, uh, perfected by other folks, so for example, you know, Grandmaster Flash had what, um, he referred to as the "Quick mix theory," which, um, involved actually touching the platters to, to, um, move from the same song on one turntable to the, to the, to the next without actually lifting the tone arm to do it so it was a lot smoother for example.

We've got the same track on both records, right?

And you can switch back and so this is this turntable, this is this turntable here and so if this is this turntable.

♪ ♪ And then this one.

We come back here.

♪ ♪ That one, so it's, it sounds like it's seamless... ♪ ♪ But it's actually switching from one turntable to the next.

♪ ♪ Well, you know, interestingly enough I'm, I'm not sure that I think Hip Hop really needs to be studied, um, in a different way.

I do think that it is, it's happening, it's coming, I think much like Jazz, you know, 40, 50 years ago, um, it's entering, now that it's 50 years old into the realm of, um, I guess what we would, we would, what is sometimes called, "Higher academia."

Um, but at the same time, everything that I've learned about Hip Hop, which, which is a lot, you know, even though there's a lot, there's a lot that I haven't learned, uh, but everything that I've learned, I learned outside of an academic institution.

A lot of the learning takes place, um, you know, it's like, I remember when I was a, a teenager, you meet somebody who, who's maybe a couple years older than you they've heard something you haven't heard, and they're like, "Yo, have you heard this?"

It's like, "No."

So, um, um, yeah I remember I was 14 and, uh, uh, working my first job at, uh, Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington and, um, selling hotdog's and, uh, a 16-year-old was there for the summer league basketball games and he came up and he was like, and I was listening to Eric B.

& Rakim and he was like, "Yo what are you listening to?"

And I'm...

He's like, "Is that Eric B.

& Rakim?"

I was like, "Yeah."

He says, uh, "Oh have you heard of, um, KRS-One Boogie Down Productions?

And I was like, "No, what's that?"

He's like, I'm gonna bring you a tape tomorrow.

So comes back the next day brings me a tape of, uh, KRS-One, uh, Boogie Down Productions and, uh, Just-Ice and just let me keep them, and I listened to them for, you know, non-stop for like two weeks, just fell in love and so much of the, um, dissemination and transfer of knowledge in terms of how Hip Hop takes place in that manner, right, sort of like, um, you learn how to MC by imitating and emulating, uh, MCs that you admire, you know, you would learn turntable techniques by watching turntablists that you admire, you know, always sort of this, um, desire, almost a, a, a need, people were driven to, to be better than themselves and by the next, better than the next person, you know, and so that's I think a lot of how, um, you know, skill, skill was developed and knowledge was transferred and I think it's important now that Hip Hop is entering into, um, not just higher academia but, uh, in, institutions of learning that that means of transfer, uh, of information I think needs to remain in order for it to stay pure.

I feel amazing.

I mean 50 years is, uh, it's a short amount of time but it's, it's also not, you know, like the fact that this is what it's grown to and to be able to celebrate it like this with an exhibition that pays tribute to so many different facets of it, I think is, um, it's wonderful and it's, it's wonderful to be able to be a part of it as well.

You hear the sample for the J, uh, the J.B.'s?

MAN: Mm-hmm.

WENDEL: Public Enemy?

Along with The Funky Drummer Break?

But they're all actually separate and then right here you hear the actual J.B.'s that were sampled... ♪ ♪ Most people don't know that.

They don't know that last part.

And then, so they hear that, and then... ♪ ♪ MAN: Yeah.

WENDEL: That's the actual...

So virtual instruments, so I've got a... (plays piano like bass).

Sure, well, um, so what myself and Abdu Ali who's the other, uh, creative who was, um, a part of creating the soundscapes, uh, as well, we both did individual soundscapes that, um, interact with each other, um, what we wanted to do was speak with or speak to the themes that are in the exhibition as well as, um, honoring the, the artists that are presented, um, in the exhibition as well, right so, sort of, there's a, a balance between, you know, obviously paying homage, um, but also, you know, thinking about the fact that everything in the exhibition, you know, it's a Hip Hop exhibition, yes, Hip Hop is a way of life, it's a culture, it's the way you dress, it's the way you talk, um, ah, you know, the way you relate to other people, but all of that originated with the music.

You know, hon, honestly for me creating, uh, is sort of a, a, a continuous process and so I am constantly flowing from one genre of style to another whether it's in performance, um, or, you know, just the, the, the music that I create myself and of course Hip Hop is such an amalgamation of things, right, and, um, so what I really wanted to do was, um, or I should say where I started was first of all to think of some classic Hip Hop tunes that, um, that I love but that are also beloved by many and to find the original samples that were used to create the instrumentals for those tracks and then to, um, recreate them in some fashion, um, that was true to the original but also to listen to the parts of the music that come before the sample that everybody knows and that come after the sample that everybody knows.

Um, you know, one of the beautiful things about Hip Hop is that it introduces, by way of sampling, a lot of music from the past, that people from the present, um, may not be familiar with until they hear it.

♪ When you say you love me, it doesn't matter ♪ ♪ It goes to my head ♪♪ WENDEL: So that's, "Paper Thin" except it's not, "Paper Thin" I mean it is but it's actually... (plays sample).

It's the, it's the Isaac Hayes sample, sliced up that was used to, to make the track.

(plays keyboard).

And this right here, you know, the song, the "Paper Thin"?

You know, right?

So you know the, "Da, na, na, na?"

That's the Prince record.

(plays sample).

And so I sliced the Prince record and put it on there, but when people hear the, the track in the museum... ♪ ♪ It sound like, you know, 'cause that's what everybody knows, but it's actually... (plays sample).

It's played player.

(plays sample).

Right, so it's, it's, but most people won't catch it, except they'll be like, "Why are certain things there not there?"

You know what I'm sayin', so that's what I meant when I said like, "Parts of the sample," you know.

The Baltimore Museum of Art, really in many ways is taking the lead in terms of presenting Hip Hop, um, honestly as it should be presented in my opinion in, uh, fine art museums around the world.

You know, people who are, um, perhaps not, uh, as familiar with the art form or maybe who have certain perception or have had a certain perception, they sort of tend to speak, uh, about Hip Hop, you know, in sort of entering these spaces, um, or institutions as like, you know, it's, it's, it's finally being respected, or it's finally getting the accolades or kudos that it deserves.

I don't see it that way at all.

Um, I don't think Hip Hop actually needs to be, um, in fine arts museums, I don't think it needs to be in higher, uh, uh, institutions of learning, um, but I think it can exist there.

Um, I think it should exist there.

And I think should and need are two very different things.

GUY: The embodiment, living, breathing, of this art form, this culture we call Hip Hop is standing before you now.

The father, DJ Kool Herc.

The first lady... MAN: Yes.

GUY: I call her Madam First Lady, Cindi Campbell.

The father MC, the first, what we call rapper, Coke La Rock.

And the legend from the Boogie Down Bronx, Lucky Bling!

(laughter).

DJ KOOL: Bling, Bling.

GUY: This is it.

This is it.

We're lucky to have them here in Baltimore today.

They came from New York... DJ KOOL: I came.

GUY: And this is it.

COKE: When we started this, it was 25, 50 cent.

It wasn't even Hip Hop, it wasn't even fashionable and two brothers and one young lady did somethin', and look where it's at now, billion dollar industry.

And I was the first G money man, kept a G a better than any type of weather, cold or hot.

(laughter).

COKE: Let's go.

NIA: Yeah, so my work is an exploration of the Black men in my family, um, most of which I've lost prematurely, um.

So that's some of my grandfathers and my father as well.

And I wanted to explore my relationship with them, um, in death and, um, kind of use that to celebrate the Black men that are around me in Baltimore and to also build a better relationship with Black men.

♪ Be, be, be, be, be, be, be, be, be ♪ ♪ Be, be, be, be, be, be ♪ ♪ Wa ♪ ♪ Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa ♪ ♪ Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa ♪ ♪ Ti ♪ ♪ Ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, ti ♪ ♪ Ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, ti ♪ ♪ Uh-huh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Mm-hmm ♪ ♪ It's me ♪ ♪ It's me ♪ ♪ I coming to you as your woman ♪ ♪ In a man's world ♪ ♪ Me ♪ ♪ It's me ♪ ♪ And I keep it a hunnid ♪ ♪ Can I ♪ ♪ 'Cause 99 ♪ ♪ 99 ♪ ♪ And a half won't do ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ (scatting rhythmically).

♪ Uh-huh ♪ (scatting rhythmically).

♪ And give your ass a chance ♪ ♪ One time ♪ (scatting rhythmically).

♪ Uh-huh ♪ (scatting rhythmically).

♪ What I'm sayin' ♪ ♪ Uhh ♪ ♪ Can't hear what I'm sayin' ♪ ♪ Can't hear what I'm sayin' ♪ (scatting rhythmically).

♪ What ♪ ♪ Look, look, look, look ♪ ♪ It's me ♪ ♪ I'm coming to you as a woman ♪ ♪ In a man's world ♪♪ NIA: Um, this film is very experimental, um.

I'm a poet, my co-director, APoetNamedNate is also a poet and, um, we value Hip Hop a lot and so does Kirby.

So, I think that the, the culture of Hip Hop, how it's so honest and colorful, um, and rhythmic, I feel like that really guided the way we wanted to tell the story with the, the music selection.

Yeah, so Brandon Woody is my brother, um, he is opening up the film and then he closes the film with Troy Long playing on the keys.

It's Jazz but I feel like it's Hip Hop too, like the way Brandon plays is so...

It's just different, you know?

He really speaks through the trumpet.

The clothes, the subjects, I feel like it all embodies Hip Hop culture.

♪ ♪ DAYTON: I think we're in a renaissance period.

I think if you go back to the 1930s, definite renaissance moment and a moment of reckoning for Black Americans.

From the perspective that it was a, a moment of cultural awareness.

I think if you fast-forward to the 1960s, that's another renaissance moment.

I think principally founded in the idea of outside agitation.

And I think that 2020 is, is in essence, another renaissance moment that we're within.

But I think the difference of this moment compared to, to prior moments, renaissance moments, is that we are, we are agitating from the inside out.

GAMYNNE: This is I think part of a turn that you're seeing at institutions like the BMA.

Not just about upholding an existing canon but about starting to shape and expand, uh, the canon as it, as it exists.

So, thinking about alternate canons and alternate kinds of canonicity.

And I think that's very much what Hip Hop has done.

It's created an alternate, aesthetic canon that resits, uh, in, in challenge to the dominate canon, uh.

Even as it's able to work with and manipulate that dominant canon in really powerful ways.

So that I think is part of that creating new kinds of knowledge that we're interested in doing.

(music plays through credits) ♪ ♪ Artworks is made possible in part by... And by...