Shea Serrano’s best-selling book The Rap Yearbook will be expanded into a six-part docu-series event as part of AMC’s original nonfiction programming in 2018 as announced earlier this morning in New York. The project’s executive producers include Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter of The Roots fame, alongside Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney.
The working title of the documentary series thus far is AMC Visionaries: Rap Yearbook, and will add to a slate of similar offerings from the cable network.
From today’s press announcement:
One of the first installments of “AMC Visionaries: Rap Yearbook” (working title) is to be executive produced by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter (Passyunk Productions), Shawn Gee (Philly Films), Emmy® Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney and Stacey Offman (Jigsaw Productions). The six-part series is slated to premiere on AMC in 2018. This is an expansion of the network’s nonfiction programming slate, which includes the previously announced projects “AMC Visionaries: Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of Comics,” featuring interviews with Stan Lee, Patty Jenkins, Lynda Carter, Kevin Smith and Todd McFarlane, and “AMC Visionaries: James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction,” featuring interviews with Paul W. Anderson, Roland Emmerich, Paul Verhoeven, Bryan Singer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sigourney Weaver, Keanu Reeves and Zoe Saldana, among many others.
“AMC Visionaries: Rap Year Book,” based on Shea Serrano’s New York Times best-selling book The Rap Yearbook, debates, deconstructs and illuminates the most important moments and songs from the biggest years in the history of hip=hop. Each episode is centered on the story of one key song and features a special guest MC as well as a select group of core contributors including legendary rap artists, acclaimed music experts and other fresh voices. The series gives viewers a deeper understanding of what hip-hop is all about by diving into the music and its history. It’s a multi-layered exploration of what was going on in the streets, on the airwaves, and in the lives of the people who created the songs that made hip-hop one of the most important music genres in the world.
An official date for the documentary series has yet to be announced.
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Photo: WENN.com
