Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

The national broadcast of Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes was supported by a comprehensive national community engagement campaign designed to educate both young consumers and media makers about issues of gender, race, and community values. The campaign included more than 400 screening and discussion events with national partners, public television stations, local partners, and others. Locations included rape crisis centers, detention facilities, colleges and universities, Boys and Girls Clubs, recreation centers, and film houses.

Comprehensive campaign materials and more than 1000 DVD copies of the film were distributed to partner organizations, educators, and community organizers around the country. ITVS convened a two-day national training and workshop at CPB that featured trainings on media literacy, gender-based violence, wellness issues for men and boys and other key sessions aimed at building capacity among public television outreach staff.

Station outreach grants were provided to KQED (San Francisco/Oakland), Georgia Public Broadcasting, WHUT (Washington DC), WXXI (Rochester, NY), and WHYY (Philadelphia) to produce local programming targeting young people of color and included a substantial youth-created media component spearheaded by ITVS. Station partner KQED trained 110 high school teachers in three educational network sessions to use the film and specially developed curricular materials in classrooms around the Bay Area with lesson plans focused on media literacy, gender-based violence, and other issues.

KLRU in Austin, Texas convened more than 400 men and boys and more than 200 women and girls at a special meeting for the African American community in Austin. The daylong event was designed around Hip-Hop and featured a keynote address from professional antiviolence trainer Ted Bunch from campaign national partner A Call to Men. The agenda also included two screenings of the film and numerous discussion sessions. This comprehensive campaign touched hundreds of thousands of people, and hundreds of community organizations and activists, and created a sustained, positive conversation about these important social issues.