CENTRAL ISLIP, NY — A documentary exploring Long Island's underground hip-hop scene and the communities that helped build it will screen Saturday, Sept. 26, at the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame in Stony Brook, bringing a Central Islip-raised filmmaker home to the region where he first became an MC.
The Long Island Underground Legends of Hip-Hop, the directorial debut of journalist Archie Snowden, is the Saturday-night main feature of LIMEHOF's second annual Music Documentary Film Festival. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Snowden and several artists featured in the film, along with live performances.
Snowden, who performed as "MC Amazin' A" during the genre's early years, says the film is an effort to document the DJs, MCs and grassroots crews whose contributions he believes have been overshadowed by accounts centered on New York City's five boroughs.
The idea took shape during hip-hop's 50th-anniversary celebrations in 2023. As Snowden watched artists from the city receive recognition, he thought about the performers he had known in Nassau and Suffolk counties who were largely absent from the conversation.
"We had a whole culture and a movement on Long Island that is only visible to people who live there, and that's where the documentary came from," Snowden told Patch.
From neighborhood parties to the microphone
Snowden was born in Copiague, and his family later lived in Brentwood before settling in Central Islip, where he graduated from high school. He was about 12 when he began hearing an emerging style of music in the neighborhoods around him.
"It was a secret, secret society of black entertainment," he said. "It wasn't even public yet."
The music did not initially reach Snowden through records or major concert venues. He remembers nightclub and disco DJs carrying their equipment into residential neighborhoods, where young people who were too young to enter clubs could hear them perform.
"The DJs from the discotheques and the nightclubs were setting up their equipment in the streets, in the parks, and in their backyards, and putting the speakers out in the neighborhood so everybody can hear it," he said.
MCs who had once used microphones to direct crowds began rhyming over the music, Snowden recalled. By the late 1970s, he said, children throughout his neighborhood wanted to take part. His cousin, a DJ, needed someone to handle the microphone, and Snowden volunteered.
He began performing at block parties, neighborhood gatherings and rented halls. VFW halls, Knights of Columbus halls and similar spaces became makeshift clubs for teenagers who could not enter adult nightspots.
"I became an instant celebrity — I was 13," Snowden said.
House parties were just as important. A basement, a DJ and a small admission charge — or no charge at all — were enough to bring people together. Snowden remembers those gatherings as places where performers developed their skills and audiences discovered artists who had little access to the established music business.
A history beyond the familiar names
The documentary follows that grassroots activity across Long Island, from Nassau County communities to towns farther east in Suffolk. Snowden describes central Suffolk — including Central Islip, Brentwood, Amityville, Wyandanch, Deer Park, Huntington and Bay Shore — as an important meeting point for the scene.
Long Island eventually became associated with major hip-hop names, including Rakim, Public Enemy and Biz Markie. But Snowden wanted to examine the people and gatherings that came before wider recognition.
"Those artists come from somewhere, right?" he said.
The film features JVC FORCE, the Central Islip group known for "Strong Island," along with MC Glamorous and other performers from Long Island's underground scene. It also examines the early DJs and crews who brought music into streets, parks and neighborhood parties.
Snowden said he hopes the documentary prompts audiences to learn their names rather than treating Long Island's hip-hop history as beginning with its best-known artists. Snowden also recalls a music industry that, in his experience, placed less value on artists who identified themselves as being from Long Island.
"You could not say that you were from Long Island if you wanted to get a good record deal," he said.
Because Snowden had already developed a local following, he said, the people considering his music knew where he was from. He declined the offers, attended Suffolk Community College and Farmingdale, and pursued a career outside performing.
"They were giving me the Long Island rate," he recalled. "And I refused to take that."
A project that grew beyond its original plan
Snowden's journalism career ultimately gave him a way to return to the history he had lived. An award-winning multimedia journalist who now works for WHNT News 19 in Huntsville, Alabama, he previously reported for Verizon FiOS 1 News Long Island and RNN-TV. He also spent years teaching video and news production at the CSB Media Arts Center in Westbury.
He had considered making documentaries before, particularly after receiving recognition for longer-form reporting. Following the 2023 hip-hop anniversary celebrations, he began interviewing people from Long Island's early scene, initially intending to produce short features for social media and reintroduce those artists to the public.
After several interviews, he realized the conversations were connected. The performers knew one another, remembered the same gatherings and could help tell a larger story.
"I think I have a damn feature here," he recalled thinking.
Snowden said finding participants was easy because he had kept in touch with many of them for decades. He recalled discussing the need to document Long Island's hip-hop scene with rapper Biz Markie before his death, saying the two had talked about using Snowden's media platform to tell the story.
He visited participants' homes and looked through photographs they had saved from their younger years. Many had few images because they were children at the time and had no reason to imagine the music would develop into a global industry.
As the project grew, so did the workload. Snowden said he often began editing at 8 or 9 p.m., after his job and family responsibilities, and sometimes worked until about 3 a.m. Weekends were frequently devoted to the film.
A homecoming in Stony Brook
Snowden said the documentary runs about 90 minutes and has already screened at other events, including a Hip Hop Film Festival in August. But showing it on Long Island carries particular significance for him.
Snowden moved to Alabama in 2021 after working in New York-area news. He said he misses the communities where he grew up and the people who knew him long before he became a journalist.
"Suffolk County is where I was raised," he said. "Growing up around the North Shore and South Shore and the beaches. It's where I worked. It's where I went to school. It's home."
He is especially looking forward to seeing childhood friends, fellow performers and family members watching their history unfold on the screen.
"These guys and gals are my family," he said.
Snowden said the Sept. 26 screening sold out shortly after tickets became available.
LIMEHOF's festival runs Sept. 25 through 27 at 97 Main St. in Stony Brook and features 43 music documentaries from 11 countries.
The Saturday screening will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Amelia Moore, with Snowden, DJ Kaos, DJ Spider, Will Castro, DJ Rah G Raj and DTA Diamond the Artist, according to LIMEHOF.
Scheduled live performers include DJ J-1, DJ RNB, DJ Belal Miller, DJ Kaos, DTA Diamond the Artist, JVC FORCE's B-Luv and AJ Rock, MC Glamorous, Son of Bazerk featuring Half Pint, Sport G and Mastermind, and Divine Sounds' Disco Richie and Brian Ace Soundz.
"The Long Island Underground Legends of Hip-Hop is an important piece of Long Island music history that finally gives many of the artists who helped build the region's hip-hop culture the recognition they deserve," Tom Needham, executive director of the film festival, said.
Keeping the names alive
Snowden said he believes suburban communities such as those in Nassau and Suffolk counties have to document their own stories and make sure the people who came before them are remembered.
Snowden does not view the film as the end of the project. He said he wants to make a second installment and bring the documentary to colleges and universities, beginning on Long Island, where students may encounter hip-hop in classrooms without learning much about the local people who helped develop it.
Snowden said he hopes younger viewers leave the screening curious about the artists who performed in their neighborhoods decades before them.
"I want them to know and learn those names and carry those names of those DJs that I just mentioned, who started in their community, and be proud with that," Snowden said.
He intends to keep documenting those stories, whether through another film, campus screenings or other opportunities to share the history.
"That's my next goal — keep the conversation going any way I can."
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