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AE: Since the release of your film, have you familiarized yourself with the thriving, indie scene of homo-hop gay rappers and their fans, or gay hip-hop films such as Pick up the Mic?
BH: The gay artist I am probably most familiar with is Tim'm West, who I was just on a panel with in Los Angeles with [actor] Terrence Howard and [scholar and former Def Jam executive] Carmen Ashurst-Watson. Tim'm is someone whom I consider to be very intelligent and a great artist. Also on the panel was [gay hip-hop artist] Juba Kalamka, so I am familiar with him. I met [gay rapper] QBoy when I was at the Outfest film festival.

Pick up the Mic was shown there. I got to meet a number of people who were in the film. I think all hip-hop fans should see that film. It would stretch the hell out of them. They would be blown away by it. It would really challenge a straight hip-hop audience.

AE: How has making the film changed you personally?
BH: When I first started making the film, I was more focused on hip-hop only, but now I am more focused on the bigger picture of how we see the film's issues in a global context. I had to ask myself, “Why am I going after hip-hop so hard, when all these issues are omnipresent all over American culture?” It's not like hip-hop is the only place you can find hyper-aggression, misogyny, homophobia and crass, consumer materialism.

Also, all these issues about manhood, sexual identity and gender construction are personal for me. They are not just big words or ideas — they are things I grapple with myself.

I am heterocentric. I am married. I look at the world through a heterosexual lens. I still have to challenge that. How can I be a better man and a better husband? How can I express the full range of emotions with my wife? How can I be more secure in my sense of manhood around other men? I think about all these different things. The film has plunged me deeper into the sense of who I am.

AE: Would you like to close with a message to AfterElton.com readers and gay fans of hip-hop?
BH: As a straight guy, I know there's still more for me to learn on issues that relate to gay life. Sometimes I question whether I am even the best person to be centered in a discussion of homosexuality and homophobia. I always wonder if I am doing a good job, and if I doing it from the right place. Sometimes I feel my doing this is kind of like a white person doing a film about race issues. But my goal has been to get straight men to think a little more openly about homosexuality, and for us to at least have conversations we've never had before.

Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes airs on the PBS series Independent Lens on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2007.

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