Rapmania: The Roots of Rap

For Jimmy Smith, Jr., life is a daily fight just to keep hope alive. Feeding his dreams in Detroit's vibrant music scene, Jimmy wages an extraordinary personal struggle to find his own voice - and earn a place in a world where rhymes rule, legends are born and every moment… is another chance.

Time Is Illmatic is a feature length documentary film that delves deep into the making of Nas' 1994 debut album, Illmatic, and the social conditions that influenced its creation.

New Jersey Drive is a 1995 film about black youths in Newark, New Jersey, the unofficial "car theft capital of the world". Their favorite pastime is that of everybody in their neighborhood: stealing cars and joyriding. The trouble starts when they steal a police car and the cops launch a violent offensive that involves beating and even shooting suspects.

An ex-con and break-dancer helps save a neighborhood from a greedy developer while trying to win a rap contest.

Two shady concert promoters get into hot water when their chance to book a superstar rapper goes awry.

A vampiric doctoral student tries to follow the philosophy of a nocturnal comrade and control her thirst for blood.

Awesome: I Fuckin' Shot That! is a 2006 concert film of the Beastie Boys. It was created by giving camcorders to 50 audience members of a sold out concert at Madison Square Garden on October 9, 2004. The audience members were instructed to keep the cameras rolling at all times. The DVD of this concert movie was released on July 24, 2006 in the UK and July 25, 2006 in the US.

Twelve-year-old mathematics genius Prem discovers his recently deceased father was a famous rapper and immediately sets out to learn more about his father’s life and passions. Empowered by imaginative hip-hop music-fueled fantasies, Prem is determined to find out if hip-hop truly is in his DNA.

A young man searches for the "master" to obtain the final level of martial arts mastery known as the glow. Along the way he must fight an evil martial arts expert and rescue a beautiful singer from an obsessed music promoter.

Erik is a hip-hop-lovin' teen living in Philadelphia who'd rather spend time listening to his idol, the rapper Prolifik. One day, Erik finds himself more entangled in Prolifik's life than he ever imagined possible: Prolifik's been kidnapped, his master tapes are gone, and, through a series of twisted events, the same people who are after the musician go after Erik, too.

An aspiring DJ, from the South Bronx, and his best friend, a promoter, try to get into show business by exposing people to hip-hop music and culture.

Desperate for a breakthrough as she nears the big 4-0, struggling New York City playwright Radha finds inspiration by reinventing herself as a rapper.

Audrey is a typical music student at a large Midwestern college, interested in pursuing a career in classical music. Her apparent "normalcy," however, makes her something of a misfit in her family, made up as it is by a group of outrageous performers. Audrey's parents were funk/ R& B stars in the 1970s, while her brother currently reigns supreme on the hip hop and fashion scene, and her precocious little sister is a streetsmart MC in the manner of Lil' Kim. Audrey finds this family tree a little embarrassing, and is somewhat disdainful of the ego and trappings of pop culture entertainment, so she hides her clan from her new boyfriend. This unfortunately becomes a bit difficult to maintain when the family shows up for a visit. The campus will never be the same again!

This documentary follows rapper J. Cole's 2016 HBO concert film feature on the making of his fourth studio album 4 Your Eyez Only. The film Includes musical performances from Cole, as well as stories from low-income residents in cities around the country, such as Baton Rouge, Atlanta, and Cole's hometown of Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Ava DuVernay focuses on the history of female MCs in the hip hop industry in this short documentary that features Missy Elliott, Salt-N-Pepa, Eve, Jean Grae, Roxanne Shante, Trina, The Lady of Rage, and many more.

Kind of famous and sort of rich, rapper and actor Vince Staples navigates the challenges and surprises of everyday life in his hometown of The Beach.

A powerful family drama about the head of a music empire whose three sons and ex-wife all battle for his throne.

Hip Hop Squares is an American television game show hosted by New York radio personality Peter Rosenberg, which debuted on MTV2 on May 22, 2012. The show's format is similar to Hollywood Squares, but with a more "urban" theme. The show is taped in Brooklyn, New York.

Rising comics and singers are showcased in this long-running variety show from the Apollo Theater in New York City's Harlem neighborhood.

MTV's acclaimed music series showcases today's top artists and rising stars in the industry performing acoustic versions of their songs.

Pitting notable historical and pop culture figures, real and fictional, against one another in a rap battle format.

Hip-Hop today is a global culture that has changed music, dance, fashion, language —and even politics. But where did this worldwide cultural movement begin? We trace hip-hop back to its humble beginnings, when the kids of the Bronx crammed into house parties, rec rooms, and public parks to hear music like they’d never heard it before.

Picking up where the original movie leaves off, it's 1990 in New York City at the height of rap's "Golden Age" of creativity, but corporate America has been hesitant to embrace the genre. Nikki lands a dream job as the assistant to the legendary and out-of-control Barry Fouray. Her best friend and producer DeeVee is working with rapper Ahm who is currently under investigation by the police for murder. How far will these driven young people go to rise to the top of the hip-hop world?

A four-part documentary series that tells the stories of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre -- one the son of a Brooklyn longshoreman, the other straight out of Compton - -- and their improbable partnership and surprising leading roles in a series of transformative events in contemporary culture.

Graffiti Rock was a hip-hop based television program, originally screened June 29, 1984. Intended as an on-going series, the show only received one pilot episode and aired on WPIX channel 11 in New York City and 88 markets around the country, to good Nielsen ratings. Graffiti Rock resembled a hip hop version of the popular television dance shows at the time such as Soul Train and American Bandstand. The show was created and hosted by Michael Holman, who was the manager of the popular break-dancing crew, the New York City Breakers. The episode features Run D.M.C., Shannon, The New York City Breakers, DJ Jimmie Jazz and Kool Moe Dee and Special K of the Treacherous Three. The New York City Breakers, who were fresh off of their success from the movie, Beat Street, made a showcase appearance. The episode also features television and film actress, Debi Mazar and actor/director Vincent Gallo as dancers on the show. A segment of the show was sampled on The Beastie Boys' LP Ill Communication. "[...] alright, you're scratchin it right now, cut the record back and forth against the needle, back and forth, back and forth, make it scratch, but let me tell you something don't try this at home on your dad's stereo only under hiphop supervision, alright ?" The show has since become an important 'must-see' for hip-hop enthusiasts, alongside such titles as Wild Style and Beat Street.

In this music competition show, judges Tip “T.I.” Harris, Cardi B and Chance the Rapper hit the streets to find the next rap superstar.

Charting the growth of Master P's label from a passionate side side job into a multi-million dollar enterprise responsible for records by Mystikal, Snoop Dogg, Mr. Serv-On, and more.

Set against 40 years of music history, this six-part documentary series takes a deep dive into the paradox of America’s criminalization of the genre and its fascination with the street culture that created it and still exists within it. Instead of telling the story of hip hop from the top down, this documentary tells the story from the streets up, as it reveals the untold story of how America’s streets helped shape hip hop culture from an expression of survival and defiance into music’s most dominant genre.

A legendary rapper manages the budding career of her niece in order to save her own while also managing massive debt.

Estranged and out-of-touch, four women in their 40s reunite for a chance to recapture their fame and regain the swagger they had as the Nasty Bitches—their ‘90s group that made them legends in the hip-hop world.