Don’t sleep on PBS.
Yes, it’s primarily known for Sesame Street and Downton Abbey, but the Public Broadcasting Service Inc. has aired a plethora of quality documentaries and shows, such as 2015’s The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution and most recently American Epic, a three-part documentary series, recording project and film which focuses on the birth and early, pioneering days of music in the 1920s.
Its longest-running PBS show, The Open Mind, is its nationally broadcast public affairs interview program, and has hosted hundreds of guests to the show from Martin Luther King and Malcolm X to Aloe Blacc and J.B. Smoove. Now hosted by Alexander Heffner, grandson of the creator of the show Richard Heffner, 9th Wonder was recently invited to the show for a conversation.
During his time on The Open Mind the DJ, producer, label head, and university professor, 9th spoke on These Are The Breaks, the archive of influential hip hop albums that are widely considered to be a “standard of the culture” that he — along with Henry Louis Gates Jr, Dr. Marcy Morgan, and the Hip Hop Archive and Research Institute (HARI) — established at Harvard. 9th and Alex also speak on today’s crop of hip hop artists, hip hop’s rich heritage, heaps praise on Kendrick Lamar, JAY-Z bailing fathers out of jail for Father’s Day,and much more.
The entire piece runs close to 30 minutes, but is worth every second.
