During the Tribeca TV Film Festival, we got a chance to cover an upcoming AMC Network show titled “Hip Hop: The Songs That Shook America.”
We got a chance to interview the legendary Questlove from The Roots band who is an executive producer of the show and also got to hear from a panel consisting of Black Thought from the Roots band, Angie Day, One9 and Erik Parker who are also executive producers on this show. They gave us some insight on the creation of the show, the process of how they picked the songs for the show and even hinted at more seasons in the future.
The Knockturnal: What was the inspiration behind the show? And why did you guys choose AMC?
Questlove: Well for me personally, the genesis of the show, in my opinion, started around 2012. I was online and watching different websites and blogs do experiments like we play our millennial intern staff classic hip-hop albums and get their reaction. Teenagers are the most honest people in the world so some of them would be like A Tribe Called Quest, we don’t get it. Public enemy isn’t as good as Drake. That sort of thing. After going through the countless bashing in the comments. My comment was more towards the bashers, you missed a golden opportunity to educate them on why De La Soul and all these groups are important, instead of telling the millennials that they don’t know sh*t. Ever since then I told my manager we need to put a vehicle together and present a vehicle that will allow us some space to educate and make it fun, so that’s where it came from.
The Knockturnal: That’s what I thought too since the title is what shook America, so for the youth that wasn’t alive at the time, they weren’t able to be there
Questlove: You have to explain the contextualization and what the times were like. For me all the songs chosen, we wanted to let you know what was happening when the songs were released. Also wanted to let you know what was happening with the artist. We also wanted you to know how the song was crafted from lyrics to the music and the impact that the song had. A very thorough deep-dish dive and I think we achieved that.
The Knockturnal: I know “Jesus Walks” and “Alright” are the first two songs that were chosen for the first two episodes and both of these songs have very strong themes with religion and equality, are these similar themes throughout the show?
Questlove: Yeah, we’re going to watch Latifah’s “Lady’s First” tonight and that deals with feminism in hip-hop and kind of the toxic and misogynistic sort of environment we live in. With the bridge wars between “The Bridge Is Over” and “South Bronx” and “The Bridge” by MC Shan. It’s more about the art of battle rapping. With “Rock Box” by Run DMC it’s about mixing cultures, rock music, and hip-hop together and amalgamating it and the impact of it. And OutKast “Elevators” is really about how a culture really took a chokehold on the industry, it wasn’t just the west coast sound and New York sound suddenly, the south had something to say. And for me that episode really represents the kind of you will civil war between the north and south and what happened.
After the red carpet and the screening of the “Lady’s First” episode of the show, there was a panel consisting of Questlove and Black Thought from The Roots who are both executive producers on this show, as well as executive producers Angie Day, One9 and Erik Parker. Erik and One9 are also co-directors of this show. The team behind the show discussed what the process was on creating the show and how they came up with the six songs that were chosen for the show. One9 said that “We looked at so many different factors, but there was always a common ground of authenticity and legacy and what did these songs mean in American history and so we really started with a blank canvas and threw our favorites up there.”
Black Thought said “These are all stories that could be told and retold in greater detail, but what better storytelling team then Questlove and myself, Jigsaw, Erik, One9 and Angie. I feel like on all levels the storytelling was A1. We came together and were able to just give a deeper dive and a different sort of insight into the origin story and the DNA of these songs that became the DNA of the eras in which they hit.”
Questlove spoke about how Shea Serrano’s The Rap Year Book was an inspiration for this show and Shea picked a different song for each year and it was important for the team to be able to have a dialogue and discussion on what songs to pick and could look at his book as a reference.
Erik Parker said, “For this particular season we wanted to represent geography, wanted to represent different time periods, we wanted to represent different messages that was in the music, and that’s why we tried to mix it up a little bit since we only had six episodes.”
The panel also spoke about why they decided to team up with AMC for this show. Questlove said “I’m not a sports guy but I love ESPN’s 30 for 30 and I’ve seen all the episodes and I’m obsessed with it, and that’s what I wanted this to be. For me to get as engaged as I was with 30 for 30, that’s what I want this show to be for people that really didn’t grow up in that particular era that they’re watching no matter what year that we chose.”
AMC gave them the opportunity to complete their vision of the show and gave them the final say and to do what was needed for this show to be successful. The panel also spoke about the possibility of other seasons as well and hopefully a full season rather than just six episodes. Questlove said “We just wanted to put out a little appetizer out there and do half a season, get a lot of good buzz around it and really come with what we wanted. A lot of my favorite songs that I want to do, I want to hold for season two and season three and not just go out the gate from the top.”
Hip Hop: The Songs That Shook America premieres on October 13th on AMC Network.