Laurence Madrigal’s debut documentary originated as a passion project that was envisioned as a 15-minute ode to a music scene he was drawn to.
“Every time we met someone, they’d embrace us and they’d say you’ve got to talk to this person and then this person. It was like a tidal wave,” the 33-year-old recalls. But as “We Were Hyphy” started to take shape and more people climbed aboard, it became obvious that this Bay Area story needed more context, especially since hyphy had become a national phenomenon. Eventually it was decided to get a narrator to be the guide, and they landed an ideal one in Oakland musician, actor and educator Benjamin Earl Turner, who “came of age at the peak of the hyphy movement.
Cal State Sacramento professor Andrea L.S. Moore helped research the historical and sociological aspects of hyphy. “We had a rise of hyphy and we had a fall of hyphy,” Moore said. “So we talked about that in relation to Bay Area DJs but also in relation to specifically thinking about the young folks when Oscar Grant was murdered. It would be those young people getting hyphy in the streets that would go on and become first-time social activists for social injustice. And that it was the rappers like a Mistah F.A.B. or a Zion I or a Too $hort who had to call in and rally the troops, if you will.