The New Russell Simmons Doc Asks: Who Will Stand With Black Women?
It’s more important than ever to stand by Black women and believe their stories
From the moment I agreed to appear in On the Record, I’ve been terrified. In the year between my initial interviews for the documentary and the film’s premiere at Sundance, my fear of the potential backlash against me and the other women in the doc only increased, growing into a formidable foe that felt undefeatable. But this is not a story where fear wins. This is a story where fear is met with a more powerful, some might even say magical, force that can’t be stopped. This is a story where Black women do what we always do: rescue each other.
My earliest memories of loving hip-hop involve gathering around the living room TV watching Video Music Box with DJ Ralph McDaniel. It was the late ’80s, and while my two older brothers watched videos in hopes of catching Big Daddy Kane, I was an eight-year-old unknowingly falling in love with a genre simply for giving so much life to the Black boys I loved most.
Hip-hop gave voice to Black people all over the world. The music was a powerful tool for speaking out against the systemic racism that plagued our everyday lives. Mass incarceration, discriminatory drug laws, and crack cocaine were weapons of mass…
