LEFT: Film maker Byron Hurt helmed the documentary 'Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes', airing as an instalment of 'Independent Lens' Tuesday night at 10 on PBS. RIGHT: Actor Terrence Howard hosts 'Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes', an instalment of 'Independent Lens'. - Contributed photos

When hip hop was created on the cracked streets of the Bronx, young black men gave it voice. Old-school rap was fuelled by righteous anger and challenged the status quo, but as that pervasive beat echoed off New York's poorest borough it inevitably began to change.

Regardless of some branding it 'black music' (remember when rock was labelled 'race music'?), it is generational - many blacks over 45 have no tolerance for the repetitive beat and harsh lyrics, while many whites under 45 can recite songs.

As rap grew in popularity, record companies realised there was a lot of money to be made. If violence and misogyny sold, then that's what would be out there, as no one has ever accused corporate America of putting taste before profit. Today, if one has the stomach and patience to listen closely, one can hear hideous threats of rape and sexual acts, menacing words and slurs.

Film maker Byron Hurt, 37, grew up loving rap, and as he became more aware of violence against women, he decided to look into what had happened to his beloved music. The result is Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, an outstanding documentary airing as an instalment of PBS's Independent Lens on Tuesday.

The programme's host, actor Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow), is a huge fan of documentaries and of old-school rap.

"You would think it would shine the most beautiful light on hip hop," Howard says of the documentary. "And you get to the truth of the matter being that hip hop has lost its purpose."

Poetry

Once it was poetry and told a story, Howard says. "Now, hip hop to me, has become a cancer because it is growing without its purpose," he says. "It can return back to its original state, but you must cut out the cancer."

Much of that cancer can be found in how rappers refer to women as nothing more than crass sexual objects. "When you offend a woman, you offend every person who has come on to this planet through a woman," Howard says.

The documentary, which carries a viewer discretion warning, shows clips from some rap videos that could easily be confused with porn. Though there are many excellent scenes, one that haunts shows young men at a hip hop convention, reciting lyrics that include killing one another, having sex and doing time.

"Some kids would look at going to jail and say, 'This will be great, and I will write these great lyrics.' And they forget about being raped in the shower," Howard says.

The public need not buy into whatever it's being sold, he says. "What can people do?" he asks. "Do what they do with pornography - don't watch it if offends your nature. If it offends one person, it has offended everybody."

Though a staunch fan of hip hop, Hurt is no apologist for it. Rather, he spent almost six years shining a steady light on everyone, from hopefuls spewing truly nasty lyrics to the president of BET, asking him why the art form has sunk to degrading women and gays. The executive, incidentally, just walked away, not answering.

"It is a really interesting time in hip hop," Hurt says. "You have all these perspectives of what it means to people. People are seriously examining the cultural impact of hip hop."

If anyone doubts its cultural influence, look at typical white suburban teenagers, most of whom have never set foot in the hood. Yet they wear outsized pants and in extreme cases of fads gone awry, do-rags.

"It is an interesting time in terms of hip hop," Hurt says. "A lot of people feel the current state of hip hop does not reflect what it is doing in the real world, with some exceptions."

Political stance

Chuck D, a hip hop pioneer with Public Enemy, has maintained his political stance over the decades.

"Why aren't we seeing more political people?" Chuck D says. "You can't talk about the digital divide when you don't talk about all the other divides in the black community."

This film is "the most truth-telling expose on our art form - ever," he says.

Which was precisely Hurt's goal. "I guess what I am trying to do is get us men to take a look at ourselves," he says in the beginning of the film.

In so doing, he examines how rap has become so hostile toward women and gays. This is something Tim'm West, a gay rapper, knows all too well.

"Hip hop is so a part of who I am culturally speaking and intellectually speaking, to misidentify with it is not an option," West says. "My response to it is this is why I create hip hop. I was less motivated to create hip hop when it was in its more positive era. I could be more of a fan and sit back and listen and enjoy but now it is more about creating music that I want to hear and other people like me want to hear."

As for being gay in a homophobic environment, West says, gays are supposedly the stylists and background personnel, but not actual rappers. "The idea of there being one (sort of rapper) is kind of ridiculous," he says. "Why have we created a culture where people don't feel safe to be who they really are?"

Hurt's ultimate goal for the film is to get people to question the state of the art.

"My hope is that people listen to hip hop with a different ear, and watch hip hop with a different lens," Hurt says. "And if they decide to take action about what they are seeing, that would be the ultimate hope, and people would start resisting this and saying they want something different."

- Jacqueline Cutler, Zap2it