Guerrilla News Network: When the Smoke Clearz (2002)

• 71%
• 2002
• Documentary
• Music
• Stephen Marshall

Over the past 20 years Hip Hop has evolved from the underground 'CNN of the ghetto' to the biggest game in the record business. Yet, despite its socially conscious foundation, Hip Hop is now a multi-billion dollar industry; tightly controlled by a handful of record labels, a music video monopoly, and payola-ridden corporate radio. If there was ever a need for a reformer, the time is now. Enter 2000 Grand Slam Champion, poet Taalam Acey. In the wake of CHHANGE's Hip Hop Summit and MTV's Hip Hop week, GNN releases When The Smoke Clearz, a scathing indictment of the current state of Hip Hop by one of the most political voices to hit the mic since Chuck D and KRS-1. Cut to the beat of Dead Prez's Hip Hop and featuring some of Hip Hop's most memorable video clips, dug out from the crates of the 80's, 90's and new millennium, GNN's unique brand of video scratch brings a visual dimension to Taalam's acclaimed slam epic Smoke Clearz.