You can't imagine hip-hop without the Black Panthers. Today, hopefully, the movement can be an inspiration to people. These were people who made mistakes but they were trying to change things.

Race is always tossed into the mix. The unspoken idea is always that white people have a right to carry guns and bear arms.

There's a similarity in both being young people who are not about the politics of respectability.

As the voices beneath the music are talking, you find that the music is just as important as what they're saying. The traditional thing is to lower the music so you can hear the dialogue. We just couldn't do that for that song.

People also don't understand how young the Panthers were - basically teenagers. And that they were over 50 percent women.

Once your leaders get corrupted one way or another, it's hard to stop the organization from being corrupted.

When black men started bearing arms, these people who we think of as being pro-gun are saying, 'We ought to change this law.