In 2020, in the turbulent wake of the murder of unarmed black man George Floyd in America, the rapper Killer Mike made an emotional speech to protesters in Atlanta. In this powerful monologue, made on the night of May 29, among impassioned pleas for calm he said: “It wasn’t just Dr. King and people dressed nicely who marched and protested to progress this city and so many other cities. Now is the time to plot, plan, strategise, organise and mobilise.” The speech makes for a hard-hitting opening to the new four-part BBC documentary Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World.
It resonates with the central idea of this wide-ranging series, which dives deep into the political and social issues that have shaped and continue to shape hip hop – how the form can and has been used as an effective tool for change. Public Enemy’s Chuck D, who also serves as an executive producer on the show, calls hip-hop a “collective movement” and “by-product of what comes out of the people.
