Filmwerk :: Once Upon A Time In New York: The Birth Of Hip Hop, Disco and Punk [Full Length BBC Documentary]

In the 1970s the Big Apple was rotten to the core, yet out of the grime, grit and low rent space emerged new music unlike anything that had gone before. Once Upon A Time In New York chronicles how the squalid streets of '70s New York gave birth to music that would go on to conquer the world - punk, disco and hip hop.

Inspired by the Velvet Underground, a new wave of 'punk' rock emerged in lower Manhattan including The New York Dolls, The Ramones and the Patti Smith Group. Meanwhile, downtown loft parties held by gay New Yorkers heralded the birth of disco, which would eventually spawn the ultimate club for the privileged few: Studio 54. The swanky mid-town discos were out of bounds to black New York so in the Bronx DJs such as Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa created their own parties, heralding the birth of hip hop.

Film features David Johansen, Patti Smith, John Cale, Richard Hell, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Herc, Nile Rodgers, Chuck D, Tommy Ramone, Chris Stein, Fab 5. Freddy, Lenny Kaye, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz, Syl Sylvain, Nicky Siano, David Mancuso, DJ AJ, David Depino, Jayne County, Leee Childers, Nelson George, Victor Bokris and Vince Aletti.

Filmwerk :: Big Fun In The Big Town - 1986 Hip Hop Documentary

A Dutch film exploring rap music in 1986, and features Mr. Magic and the Juice Crew, Doug E. Fresh, Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Grandmaster Flash and some 'unsigned hype'. Armed with nothing more than a camera crew and vague understanding of the English language, Bram Van Splunteren;s fearless excursion into the world of American hip hop led him to the gritty landscapes of Harlem, South Bronx, and the Lower East Side during the peak years of the 1980s crack epidemic. As many would come to learn, this backdrop proved to be the incubator to what became a breeding ground for hip hop pioneers.

Van Splunteren happened to be in the right place at the right time. The amazing scenes contained herein will blow the minds of any self respecting fan of rap music; a 17 year old LL Cool J greeting Van Splunteren from the door step of his grandmother's apartment (where he still lived), the Mystery Crew out of Chicago who happened to be trying to snag a meeting with Russell Simmons outside the small first offices of Def Jam on the same day Van Splunteren happened to be interviewing him, DMC freestyling to and unreleased beat on the cassette deck of his brand new and first Cadillac, a still skinny Biz Markie beatboxing for Roxanne Shante on stage - Van Splunteren managed to capture so many incredible moments in hip hop history and really encapsulated the era perfectly. Amazingly, the film that captured the New York rap scene during its most vital moments never received a proper debut in the city until almost 25 years after it premiered.

That changed in 2002 when Dutch magazine Vara Gids named Big Fun as one of the top ten hip-hop films of all-time. The film was shown at the Maysles Film Institute in Harlem in 2010 with Van Splunteren in attendance along with a handful of hip hop luminaries. And now, Five Day Weekend has secured the rights to issue this documentary for the first time ever to American audiences in a physical format. Big Fun In The Big Town is a must own documentary for any true rap historian, and a window into a time and place many of us can now only learn about through study. Travel back to where it all began and relive the inspiring struggle of hip hop music all over again. Amazon