Boyz in the Hood -- Thirty Years Later

"Either they don't know, don't show, or don't care what's happening in the hood."

Those daunting, heartbreaking, and prescient words were first uttered by Doughboy thirty years ago at the close of a film which shocked and amazed audiences and critics alike, while kicking off a new era of independent filmmaking and kickstarting a discussion that society is still having three decades later.

While it might have been easy to dilute the movie's message down to a warning about drugs and gang violence in the inner city communities like South Central Los Angeles, the inaugural work from iconic Gen X filmmaker John Singleton was so much more. Boyz N the Hood was a groundbreaking piece of cultural commentary about race in contemporary America. Through the words of Furious Styles, the team of Singleton and Laurence Fishburn gave audiences a master's thesis on racism, gentrification, youth, policing, and the socio-political urban landscape, while making the case that Black Lives Matter decades before the words became a rallying cry and social movement.