By Carleton Atwater

One of the films premiering at the Sundance Film Festival this week is “Beyond Beats and Rhymes,” a documentary that examines sexism, violence and homophobia in mainstream hip-hop. It was produced by Northeastern graduate Byron Hurt.

“Beyond Beats and Rhymes” took more than five years to produce, and includes interviews with many important figures in the world of rap, including Russell Simmons, Jadakiss, Fat Joe, LL Cool J and Chuck D of Public Enemy.

The Sundance Film Festival, held every January in Park City, Utah, is the premiere industry showcase for independent filmmakers in America. Many films that have debuted at the festival, like “The Blair Witch Project,” “Napoleon Dynamite,” “Clerks” and “Super Size Me,” have gone on to become widely popular.

Of the 7,459 submissions Sundance received this year, only 120 will be screened at the festival. It is an honor Hurt said he is very proud of.

“Sundance was always a milestone; it was always on mind, I’m very excited,” Hurt said.

Hurt, who graduated in 1993 with a degree in journalism, said he initially became interested in documentary filmmaking his senior year at Northeastern. His first work was “Moving Memories: The Black Senior Video Yearbook,” which examined the hopes and aspirations of his senior class.

After graduation, Hurt began working at Northeastern’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society teaching gender violence prevention to young men. He described the experience as “eye-opening.”

“When I first started doing it I was totally intimidated and really unaware about gender issues,” he said.

In many of his workshops, Hurt said the issues of misogyny and hostility in hip-hop came up, which eventually led him to re-examine the music he loved.

As a self-described “life-long hip-hop head,” Hurt said he was reluctant at first to scrutinize something he cared so much for.

“Sometimes I feel bad for criticizing hip-hop, and I guess what I’m trying to do is to get us men to just take a hard look at ourselves.”

The film explores the expectations placed on young black men in hip-hop culture.

“It’s like you’re in a box. And in order to be in that box you have to be tough, you have to have a lot of money, and get a lot of girls and dominate other people,” Hurt says in the film’s introduction. “If you’re not any of those things you get called ‘weak’ or a ‘chump.’ No one wants to be any of those things so they stay in this box.”

The film does acknowledge the many young musicians making socially conscious hip-hop, but Hurt says this is a difficult path to take, as it’s not the type of music that sells a lot of records in today’s scene.

“For every Chuck D. or Kanye West or Talib Kweli on the scene, there seems to be 10 more rappers like Lil Jon,” Hurt says. “There’s no clear reward for making thought-provoking, challenging rap, so few aspiring musicians in the mainstream seem to follow that route.”

Hurt said he hopes mainstream trends change in the future, noting that there have been periods in the past when more socially conscious rap was popular, like during the “Golden Age of Hip-Hop” in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Securing financing for his movie was not an easy task, said Hurt, who talked with 11 different organizations before receiving funding. Although difficult, Hurt said he has learned much from the experience.

“Commit ideas to paper, learn how to tell a story, be passionate about the story, learn to raise and manage money and be strong-willed and determined,” he said.

Hurt hopes Sundance is only the first step for “Beyond Beats and Rhymes.” If the film is picked up by a major distributor it could see a largescale release around the country.

Dr. Emmett Price, assistant professor of music and African American studies, said Hurt is already making a difference.

“Byron Hurt is a trailblazer in many ways and his recent recognition via invitation to the Sundance Film Festival is only the beginning of his grand contribution,” Price said.

“Hurt’s work is crucial to the large-scale study of hip hop culture and its wide appeal; his work attacks the gritty and uncomfortable subjects in rap head-on and raises the questions and perspectives that challenges viewers to explore this often uncharted terrain,” Price said.