Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the WorldEpisodes Guide

Public Enemy's Chuck D leads a cast of hip-hop icons and leading African-American and Latino cultural commentators as they chart the factors that led to the birth of the revolutionary art form of hip-hop in 1970s New York, as well as the creation of the seminal hit The Message. They evoke a picture of how, after the turbulence of the 60s and the civil rights struggles, desperate social conditions and the experience of countless dispossessed people of colour living in a city mired in crisis helped give birth to a new art form.

Chuck D, alongside a host of hip-hop luminaries and cultural commentators, explores the genre's exponential growth in the 1980s as groups like Public Enemy and NWA were formed. It charts how the art form was able to speak truth to power during a period in US history that saw Reaganomics flourish, crack cocaine obliterate inner city communities and the black male body become a symbol of mass incarceration and rising homicide rates.

Chuck D, fellow rap stars and cultural commentators explore the meteoric rise of hip-hop and gangster rap in the 90s during a tumultuous period in US history. In the years after the Los Angeles riots of 1992, hip-hop was accused of promoting violence and misogyny, all while reaching new commercial success and seeing the rise of a wave of confident female emcees.

Chuck D, fellow Hip Hop stars and cultural commentators tell the story of how the rap industry hits extraordinary heights going into the new millennium, using its power and influence to effect change in ways that were unthinkable when the culture was first born - culminating in the global protests for George Floyd.