Film explores roots, impact of Bay Area hip-hop scene
`We Were Hyphy' documentary has its premiere in Cinejoy virtual festival
Laurence Madrigal's debut documentary originated as a passion project that was envisioned as a 15-minute ode to a music scene he was drawn to.
The focus was on the hyphy movement that emerged out of Oakland in the 1990s, and the influence it eventually had on the music scene and community as it spread across the Bay Area and then the country during the 2000s and 2010s.
It was a topic the Antioch native knew well, since the movement had such an impact on him. But he knew getting even a short film done would take a lot of hustle, as he had to research and shoot it during off hours from his full-time gig.
But something happened during shooting on what was expected to be a short, under-the-radar look at hyphy, says the San Francisco State University film grad.
“Every time we met someone, they'd embrace us and they'd say you've got to talk to this person and then this person. It was like a tidal wave,” the 33-year-old recalls.
The result is “We Were Hyphy,” a 84-minute, eyeopening feature, backed by some huge names, that gets its world premiere as part of Cinejoy. The popular online offshoot of San Jose's Cinequest film festival runs Friday through April 17, and comes well-stocked with world, national and Bay Area premieres, along with interactive events such as watch parties and spotlights. More information is at www.cinequest.org.
Madrigal attributes the
growth in scope of his movie to the growth of hyphy itself — a “testament to the power of the community.” The hyphy movement elevated from underrepresented voices of Bay Area youth to a full-scale scene, with hit songs and albums, sideshows and ghost-riding, turf- and “going-dumb”dancing, fashion trends, slang and more.
That overwhelming input that filmmakers received from the community became critical, informing and steering the film in exciting new directions, Madrigal said. Numerous high-profile offers got extended as well, from such sources as “Blindspotting” scribe and star Rafael Casal, who signed on as an executive producer and appears in the film discussing how hyphy inspired his career. Other current artists, including Oakland multiplatinum-selling rapper GEazy and rising star Kamaiyah, reflect on the power of the movement.
But as “We Were Hyphy” started to take shape and more people climbed aboard, it became obvious that this Bay Area story needed more context, especially since hyphy had become a national phenomenon. Eventually it was decided to get a narrator to be the guide, and they landed an ideal one in Oakland musician, actor and educator
Benjamin Earl Turner, who “came of age at the peak of the hyphy movement.”
Helping to frame the movement from an academic and historical perspective are Cal State Sacramento professor Andrea L.S. Moore and KQED Arts columnist and “Rightnowish” podcast host Pendarvis Harshaw.
Moore started to follow hyphy in 2005 and wrote a dissertation that caught the attention of Madrigal, who then asked her to participate. Like Madrigal, she says the Bay Area arts and music scene had received a “cold shoulder” from mainstream press and curried an academic disregard. Moore saw something more important going down in Oakland.
“I came in the door saying (hip-hop artists) N.W.A. is about the police and it's conscious
rap,” she said. “But everybody couldn't understand that.” Instead, hyphy, with its affiliated dances and social events, created a different kind of movement,
While the mainstream media largely overlooked the movement, some Bay Area DJs, including those from San Francisco station KMEL-FM 106.1, along with the popular Vallejo rapper Mac Dre (and his vlog series “Treal TV”) helped hyphy get more notice in the Bay Area and beyond, the film shows.
“We had a rise of hyphy and we had a fall of hyphy,” Moore said. “So we talked about that (in the film) in relation to Bay Area DJs but also in relation to specifically thinking about the young folks when Oscar Grant was murdered. It would be those young people
getting hyphy in the streets that would go on and become first-time social activists for social injustice. And that it was the rappers like a Mistah F.A.B. or a Zion I or a Too $hort who had to call in and rally the troops, if you will.”
“We Were Hyphy” covers a lot of territory in its tidy 84 minutes but does so thoroughly and without ever seeming like it's being perfunctory, allowing artists such as Keak da Sneak — who's credited with coining the term “hyphy” — and Mistah F.A.B. to share insights and memories about how hyphy performers were often ignored by the mainstream hip-hop industry. That was until 2006 when E-40's hyphy-fueled single “Tell Me When to Go,” featuring Keak da Sneak, came out and burned its way up
the charts.
One of the more illuminating segments in “We Were Hyphy” comes when it addresses the much-debated sideshows, which originated in the East Bay in the 1980s and eventually became part of the hyphy scene.
Madrigal wanted to represent sideshows — which became vastly popular with youths but were frequently broken up by Oakland police — as a “multidimensional” topic and show it from various perspectives. One of the concerns continues to be the shrinking public spaces for sideshows, said Moore.
“It comes out of muscle car culture,” she adds. “So how come we can't give our young people a safe way to do this because if it's supported in a safe way, (the danger) could be minimized? Why do we have all the vilification and criminalization of it?”
That's one of the many potent topics explored in “We Were Hyphy,” which, as Madrigal points out, is meant to show another side of not just a musical movement, but the Bay Area.
“The portrayal of the Bay Area is a lot of the same kind of thing — a lot of tech,” he says. “And that's what people outside of California and the Bay Area see in big Netflix movies. We wanted to show that there's more in the Bay Area than all this tech stuff going on.”