Black Soil presents It was all a Dream – April 23, 2025

Music journalist Dream Hampton forged this documentary from her treasure trove of video footage from the nineties—an honest love-hate letter from a feminist rap fan. Hip-hop fans of the first hour spontaneously start nodding their heads upon hearing the title of this documentary – the first words from The Notorious B.I.G.’s rap classic, Juicy. Music journalist and filmmaker dream – what’s in a name? – hampton is one such fan. In hip-hop’s heyday, she was one of the first to seriously report on her time with greats like Biggie, Guru of Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man, and Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest for the leading magazine The Source.

So too in It Was All A Dream, compiled from her hitherto untapped goldmine of video footage from 1993 to 1995. Hampton’s visual memoir offers a unique and personal glimpse inside and outside the recording studio at the epicenter of the now half-century-old cultural movement. (source: Film Fest Gent)

Screening in collaboration with Black Soil Film Festival.

dream hampton, USA, 2024, 83 min. English spoken, English subtitles, produced with Emir Lewis