By Amanda Wicks
Baz Luhrmann’s Netflix series The Get Down explored the birth of hip-hop in the Bronx from a creative standpoint. Now, Russell Simmons wants to take a deep dive into the genre’s history through a documentary lens.
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Simmons announced a new series, The Definitive History of Hip Hop, today (March 14th), which will start production in 2017. The series will integrate “visual effects, archival footage and celebrity interviews” to tell about hip-hop’s birth in the Bronx and Queens and follow its rise (via Pitchfork).
“The series gets behind the scenes of what drove the beats, the rhymes, the ideas—and the people—that so powerfully hit a chord with all of youth culture in America and around the world,” Simmons stated in a press release. “It starts with the OGs of this disruptive force in entertainment, spotlights some of the lesser known artists who’ve fallen out of history or favor, and of course looks at the icons who are now household names whether you’re in LA or London, Toledo or Tokyo…. We are going long, and deep, and plan to follow the characters and story lines, the drama, the dreams, the deaths, the disruptions, that have made our narrative one of the most compelling American stories of the last three decades. And its future is still being written today, so the story is both timeless and endless.”
No word yet on where the series will air.