Filmmaker goes behind the beat of hip hop

Sometimes a lyric isn’t just words. Sometimes a video isn’t just people dancing.

To filmmaker, writer and activist Byron Hurt, what we consume from pop culture are actually messages about who we are, how we behave and our place in society. He dissects that idea in regard to hip-hop culture in the film “Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes,” screening Tuesday at Colorado College.

“This film challenges everyone: consumers, artists, black, white, people who have issues with gays,” Hurt said. “It’s the kind of film that strikes a chord in many different demographic backgrounds.”

The documentary aired at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006 and on national television in 2007.

“Since that time, I’ve been on the road constantly showing the film and talking about the film,” he said. “It’s amazing that it still has as much traction as it does.”

Perhaps its continued popularity stems from Hurt’s ability to cut away the veneer of hip-hop to expose the complex and often negative narratives underneath about masculinity, femininity, homosexuality, class and race — narratives many don’t look deep enough to see.

“The process was to create a film that would be intelligent and entertaining ...” Byron said. In particular, the documentary focuses on the promotion of stereotypical notions of manhood, which are detrimental to both sexes in the long term, but Hurt hopes that the critical lens he gives audiences to view hip-hop culture will then be applied to our society at large.

“Hip-hop is just one place where young people learn about how to be a man, but that also comes from sports culture, military culture, church culture, anywhere there is evidence of patriarchy, which is everywhere,” he said. “In terms of media, we are bombarded with so many images, and it’s vital to deconstruct those images and get beyond the surface stuff in terms of what these image say.”

Hurt will be available after the screening of the 60-minute film for a question-and-answer period and a reception, which he hopes the audience will attend.

“The responses have been really incredible. There is usually a really long Q-and-A afterward,” Hurt said. “This film has proven that it really gets people to talk.”

‘Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes’

What:

Filmmaker Byron Hurt joins the audience for a free screening of his hip-hop documentary followed by discussion, sponsored by the Colorado College Department of Race and Ethnic Studies and the Cultural Attractions Fund.

When:

7 p.m. Tuesday

Where:

Colorado College’s Armstrong Hall, 14 E. Cache La Poudre St.

Admission:

Free