FREE SCREENING – BAM BAM: The Sister Nancy Story + BUBBLING BABY + SPIRITUAL CYPHERS: HIP HOP AND TH

FREE OUTDOOR SCREENING

Saturday, August 29th, 2026
7:00 PM/Sunset - 9:00 PM

The Plaza at the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Bldg.
163 West 125th Street, New York, NY, 10027

MADE YOU LOOK: H20 (HIP-HOP ODYSSEY)
Co-presented with Hip-Hop Education Center

THIS PROGRAM IS SUPPORTED, IN PART, BY PUBLIC FUNDS FROM THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CITY COUNCIL

RAIN LOCATION:
Maysles Documentary Center 
343 Lenox Avenue/Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY, 10027 (between 127th and 128th Streets)  

BAM BAM: THE SISTER NANCY STORY

Alison Duke, June 2024, 98 min
Producers: Alison Duke, Ngardy Conteh George.                                           

Sister Nancy’s “Bam Bam” has been part of our collective consciousness for over 40 years, but what do we really know about her?

This fun, inspirational documentary showcases Sister Nancy's resilience through dynamic tour performances, interviews, archival footage, and reenactments. In an industry notorious for silencing female artists, Sister Nancy is hell-bent on empowering others with her music and knowledge to make a difference—proving that good music can't be stopped!

PRECEDED BY:

BUBBLING BABY

Sharine Rijsenburg, 2025, 19 mins.

A short documentary by Sharine Rijsenburg exploring the rich history and cultural significance of bubbling music, a genre that originated in the 1980s within Caribbean-Dutch communities, particularly among Surinamese and Antillean youth in Rotterdam, The Hague, and Amsterdam. DJ Moortje, a Dutch-Caribbean DJ of Curaçaoan descent, is often credited as the pioneer of bubbling. In 1986, he accidentally played a dancehall record at an accelerated tempo in a Rotterdam club. Instead of stopping the track, the crowd responded enthusiastically, dancing in a new, quick, jerking style that became associated with bubbling.

Sharine Rijsenburg is a creative researcher and visual anthropologist based in Rotterdam. She combines explorations of socio-political issues with engaging storytelling. Her work demonstrates her practice of delving into Dutch and Caribbean archives to investigate the relationship between (self)image, representation, and colonial history.

Spiritual Cyphers: HIP-HOP AND THE CHURCH

Director Ariyan Johnson, 2022, 37 min.

Ariyan Johnson shares her personal journey about the struggles and triumphs of her two conflicting loves, Hip-Hop and the Church. Through research and interviews with pastors, historians, artists, and pioneering women hip hop dance artists who stood in the gap to fight against gender biases, the film explores the burgeoning industry of Hip-Hop, and not only her own and the women’s challenge for acceptance within the Church, but also Hip-Hop.