Shan Nicholson describes making the Rubble Kings documentary

Shan Nicholson, director of the newly-released documentary, Rubble Kings, joined us at RIOC to talk about the project. The film is focused on New York City gang culture in late 1960s and early 70s, which paved the way to what later became Hip Hop culture. What began as an idea for a script on the New York music group/gang the Ghetto Brothers turned into an 8-year film project for Shan after he discovered enough research to start writing out a timeline of history. Narrated by John Leguizamo, Shan explains that “The film explores the conditions that created these gangs.” and “The Bronx was burnt down and there was no hope for these kids.” He goes on to say that all of the former gang members were open to telling their story, as long as it was understood to be a survival story and not a glorified lifestyle. Shan’s motivation to continue pursuing the documentary’s completion throughout the 8 years was his strong, internal intuition that this was a great piece of knowledge for the world to see, and that he was unable to step away or stop thinking about it. Check out Rubble Kings here and look out for the soundtrack featuring Run The Jewels, Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire, Ka, & DJ Preservation.

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