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.

Instead of feeling like there's two or three of us in this town of hostile crackers, I'm in a big church filled with people who believe the same thing I believe and the power of song is raising what we're trying to do, raising it up to the rafters.

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

Cameras have really made people question the police. People, especially white people, are saying, 'Oh my God, we had no idea.'

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.

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