Blacking Up

Hip-Hop's Remix of Race And Identity

Hip-Hop was created by urban youth of color more than 30 years ago amid racial oppression and economic marginalization. It has moved beyond that specific community and embraced by young people worldwide, elevating it to a global youth culture.

The ambitious and hard-hitting documentary BLACKING UP looks at the popularity of hip-hop among America's white youth. It asks whether white identification is rooted in admiration and a desire to transcend race or if it is merely a new chapter in the long continuum of stereotyping, mimicry and cultural appropriation? Does it reflect a new face of racial understanding in white America or does it reinforce an ugly history?

Winner of the American Library Association's 2011 Notable Videos for Adults Award

A much needed anecdote to much of the unsophisticated analysis of youth culture that floods our airways and our newspapers. 'Blacking Up' wrestles with the ambiguity and the consequence of cultural borrowing. - Lonnie Bunch , National Museum of African American History & Culture