Being a part of independent-film world, the independent-film community, that's what you do. You support each other. If someone's doing a movie and you trust them, you roll the dice. Sometimes it's gonna be good, sometimes it's gonna be something that's like, "Oh I don't know what the hell that is." But I've been more fortunate than not to have it work well.

Were there certain things that I didn't feel were dignified enough to make it into the movie? Yeah.

Socially, hip-hop has done more for racial camaraderie in this country than any one thing. 'Cause guys like me, my kids - everyone under 45 either grew up loving hip-hop or hating hip-hop, but everyone under 45 grew up very aware of hip-hop. So when you're a white kid and you're listening to this music and you're being exposed to it every day on MTV, black people become less frightening. This is just a reality. What hip-hop has done bringing people together is enormous.

I grew up in New York City in the '80s, and it was the epicenter of hip-hop. There was no Internet. Cable television wasn't as broad. I would listen to the radio, hear cars pass by playing a song, or tape songs off of the radio. At that time, there was such an excitement around hip-hop music.

I had a boom box, but I didn't go too far with it because I had a really, really big one. It was like the size of a suitcase, and I was just a little kid.

Positive doesn't mean unflawed: It means human and vulnerable. If you make a film and you're portraying the subject with respect, you're gonna do it in an honest way.

I heard Q-Tip on the Jungle Brothers' song 'The Promo.' It was very exciting. It was very new. The music and the culture around hip-hop was evolving. I think there's an emotional quality to their music and there's a vulnerability to the music. For me, A Tribe Called Quest was my Beatles.