Wide Awake: dream hampton’s It Was All a Dream,

Filmmaker and cultural critic dream hampton was both shaping and reshaping the world around her decades before she was named in the TIME 100 most influential people list of 2019 (not coincidentally, the year Surviving R. Kelly, the Lifetime docuseries hampton executive produced, received an Emmy nomination – and kickstarted the downfall of the titular sexual predator). In fact, between writing her first opinion piece all the way back in ’91 for The Source, now the world’s longest-running rap periodical, and hanging out with folks like her neighbor Christopher Wallace, aka The Notorious B.I.G., hampton had both a front row seat to the birth of hip hop – and a seat at the table. Which is what makes It Was All a Dream, hampton’s “visual memoir” (EP’d by Biggie’s son C.J. Wallace) much more than a walk down an early 90s memory lane.

To read the rest of my essay visit Global Comment.