In March of 2019, Morgan Cooper dropped a video on YouTube that quickly went viral. It was a short film that he made as a passion project, after he was struck with a flash of inspiration: What if the 90’s classic The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air were updated for the 21st century? Three years later, Bel-Air premiered on Peacock to record-breaking numbers, with Cooper as director and executive producer. The season two finale drops on Peacock on April 27th, and the show was recently renewed for a third season. For Into America, host Trymaine Lee spoke with Morgan Cooper about Bel-Air, the creative decisions he’s making with the show, and his lightning quick rise in Hollywood. Trymaine also spoke with actress Cassandra Freeman, who plays Aunt Viv in the new show, as well as hip hop icon DJ Jazzy Jeff, who played Jazz on the original Fresh Prince, and who hosted Bel-Air: The Official Podcast. (Original release date: March 10, 2022)For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.For More:Stream Bel-Air on PeacockHow a Viral Video Turned Into Bel-AirThey're Back – See Which Original ‘Fresh Prince' Stars Are Reuniting on ‘Bel Air'

Into America

The Re-Freshed Prince of Bel-Air (2022)

Into America with Trymaine Lee is nominated for two Webby Awards! The show is nominated for best overall News & Politics podcast, and our Reconstructed series is nominated under best Limited-Series.We need your vote to win!To vote, click HERE. (Or type in your browser: vote.webbyawards.com)Click on General Series, then News & Politics to cast your vote for us in this category. Next, head over to Limited-Series & Specials. You can vote for our Reconstructed series under the News & Politics section. Once you’ve voted, share the news! You can tag the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.Voting closes on Thursday, April 20th. Thanks for supporting Into America!

Vote for Into America to win a Webby!

In 2015, a police officer shot and killed LaKeith Smith’s friend, A’Donte Washington, during a burglary gone wrong. But years later, LaKeith is the one behind bars for murder. LaKeith was originally given a sentence of 65-years, after beingc onvicted of burglary, theft, and something called felony murder. In certain criminal cases, the felony murder rule allows a person to be charged with murder even if they’re not the one who did the killing. Experts say it’s a legal charge that disproportionately hurts young, Black and brown men. In a March resentencing hearing, a judge ruled that LaKeith’s sentences could be served concurrently, thus reducing his overall time; but LaKeith’s family and supporters were still left heartbroken, because even with this reduction, he’s facing a 30-year sentence.Trymaine Lee spoke to LaKeith’s mother, Tina Smith, about her family’s continued fight for justice. And we talked to lawyer Leroy Maxwell and activist Daniel Forkkio, along with Andre Washington, the father of A’Donte Washington, about what true justice for his son would look like. Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.For a transcript, please visit our homepage.For More: Sentence reduced for man convicted after friend killed by officerFelony Murder: An On-Ramp for Extreme Sentencing

The Case of LaKeith Smith

When toxic chemical spill from a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio last month led to health concerns in the area, the disaster attracted widespread media coverage, action from Environmental Protection Agency, and a bipartisan push to enact stricter regulations on rail safety.Yet for residents of so-called "sacrifice zones," this kind of environmental disaster is everyday life. These communities, which are disproportionately Black, are close to industrial plants that emit carcinogens and other dangerous pollutants. This week, Into America heads to Institute, West Virginia, a Black town that has long dealt with toxic air from nearby chemical plants, to talk with resident and activist Katherine Ferguson, interim director of the community group Our Future West Virginia, about the town’s fight for justice. Trymaine Lee also talks with Dr. Sacoby Wilson, a public health professor at the University of Maryland, about why Black communities like this one are hit hardest by environmental concerns, and what can be done to prevent further disaster.Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.For a transcript, please visit our homepage. For More: Climate Denial is RacistThe Power of the Black Vote: Tackling Our Climate CrisisInto Dirty Air

Sacrifice Zones

Retired Florida professor Marvin Dunn has been dismayed at recent efforts to battle so-called critical race theory and limit the way educators can talk about race. Last year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law the Stop WOKE Act, which mandated that public schools teach race in a manner where students would not “feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress for actions, in which he or she played no part.”Like many educators, Dr. Dunn feared this would create an environment where teaching hard truths about history is discouraged. He decided to start the Teach the Truth tour.This week, Trymaine Lee hops on the tour bus with Into America to speak with Dr. Dunn and students about what’s at stake when it comes to learning the truth about American history. They visit historic sites related to the Ocoee Massacre, the lynching of Willie James Howard, and the Black town of Rosewood, which was destroyed a hundred years ago by a white mob.Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.For a transcript, please visit our homepage.For More: Professor slams DeSantis for quashing Black history educationKnow Your History‘We need to hear it.’ This tour explores Florida’s horrific history of racial violence

Teaching the Truth

The Louisville Metro Police Department has engaged in sweeping civil rights abuses against Black people, women, and people with disabilities, according to newly released findings from a Department of Justice investigation.“Shortly after we opened the investigation, an LMPD leader told the department Breonna Taylor was a symptom of problems that we have had for years,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a press conference last week. “The Justice Department's findings in the report that we are releasing today bear that out.”This week, which marks three years since Breonna Taylor was killed, Into America returns to Trymaine Lee’s conversation with Hannah Drake, a Louisville activist Hannah Drake who helped elevate Breonna’s story on social media, and was part of an effort to push the city council to pass Breonna’s Law — a ban on “no-knock” warrants.  We also check in with Hannah about the investigation’s findings, Louisville’s rotating police chiefs, and her hopes for the future. (Original release date: September 24, 2020)Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.For a transcript, please visit our homepage.For More: Rev. Sharpton, Ben Crump, and the Pursuit of JusticeReconstructed: The Book of TrayvonAfter George Floyd

UPDATE: Into Injustice for Breonna Taylor

Jean-Michel Basquiat was an iconic American artist who rose to fame in the downtown New York City cultural scene of the late 1970s and early 80s. Today, Basquiat’s legacy looms over us, larger than ever. His images and symbols grace Uniqlo t-shirts and Tiffany & Co jewelry campaigns. In 2017, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s powerful 1982 painting of a skull was purchased for $110.5 million, becoming the sixth most expensive work ever sold at auction.But has Basquiat’s pop cultural significance eclipsed the artist’s place in art history? For Into America, Trymaine Lee spoke with Basquiat’s former bandmate and friend, Michael Holman, about the young artist’s coming of age in 1980s New York and the crisis of Basquiat’s archive with American art historian Dr. Jordana Saggese. And finally we take a trip to Basquiat’s childhood and speak with Basquiat’s younger sisters, Jeanine Heriveaux and Lisane Basquiat, to unfold their early relationship and an exhibition King Pleasure they have curated in honor of their late brother.(Original release date: April 28, 2022)The exhibition will be on display at the Grand in downtown LA starting March 31st. "Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure" features over 200 works, and includes recreations of the Basquiat family home in Brooklyn, Jean-Michel's studio on Great Jones Street, and the VIP room at Palladium nightclub, as it was in the late 1980s.Special thanks to Dr Mark Anthony Neal for his research support.  For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, all with the handle @intoamericapod.Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.For More: Street Disciples: The Concrete JungleStreet Disciples: Broken Glass EverywhereHealing Tremé 

How Basquiat Earned His Crown (2022)

Trymaine Lee reflects on the direction of hip-hop over the last decade: through the Trump and Biden administrations, the rise of Black Lives Matter, and the spread of COVID-19. He surveys the state of the culture in 2023, 50 years after the birth of the artform; and he looks ahead to what the next 50 years could hold. Plus, guests from our “Street Disciples” series tell us how their lives have been shaped by half a century of politics, power, and the rise of hip-hop. Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.For a transcript, please visit our homepage.Editors’ Note: an earlier version contained an incorrect time period for the death of Michael Stewart. The story has been updated.For More: Street Disciples: The Concrete JungleStreet Disciples: Broken Glass EverywhereStreet Disciples: America’s Most WantedStreet Disciples: If I Ruled the World

Street Disciples: We Gon’ Be Alright

By the late 90s, rap was the world’s pop music. The money was flowing, creating hip-hop moguls and welcoming in the Bling Era. But as hip-hop went mainstream and gained commercial success, the rap music topping the charts had begun to largely shed its political messaging in favor of music that was mostly about the trappings of success: sex, partying, and money. That is, until pressure mounted and backlash to a Republican government brought politics back to hip-hop once more, leading to the mobilization of a generation and the first hip-hop president: Barack Obama.Trymaine Lee is joined by: rapper Master P, stic of the hip-hop duo Dead Prez, rapper & activist Tef Poe, Vote or Die’s Alexis McGill Johnson, political organizer Rosa Clemente, and writer Joan Morgan. Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.For a transcript, please visit our homepage.For More: Street Disciples: The Concrete JungleStreet Disciples: Broken Glass EverywhereStreet Disciples: America’s Most Wanted

Street Disciples: If I Ruled the World

As hip-hop found its rhythm in the late 80s and early 90s, artists had to grapple with the scars of violence the drug war was causing within the community, using music videos like “Self Destruction” to hold each other accountable, and trying not to unravel in the face of what was happening in the streets. This is also when hip-hop began to expand outside of New York, to Los Angeles, where California’s own policies and structures were shaping the rise of gangsta rap. These movements culminated in the so-called “golden age” of hip-hop, a time of maturing and sophistication in the music.  But along with that maturity came uncertainty from national leaders, and a new wave of commercialization that threatened to unravel this political artform.On this episode of “Street Disciples,” Trymaine Lee hears from: Daddy-O from the hip-hop group Stetsasonic, rapper and producer The D.O.C., Video Music Box’s Ralph McDaniels, radio host Bobbito Garcia, writer Nelson George, and journalist Davey D.Note: this episode contains several instances of profanity. Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.For a transcript, please visit our homepage.For More: Street Disciples: The Concrete JungleStreet Disciples: Broken Glass Everywhere

Street Disciples: America’s Most Wanted

By the 1980s, hip-hop artists were beginning to expand the party culture of hip-hop's early years and think about what they wanted to say with their music. Faced with a city wrecked by economic abandonment and neglect, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released “The Message” in 1982, calling out the conditions head-on: “rats in the front room, roaches in the back, junkies in the alley with a baseball bat.” And to take control of this environment of neglect, young artists began shaping their environment through dance, fashion, and graffiti. But with the growth in the culture came a crackdown on Black America: in the form of “broken windows” policing, and then a ramped up War on Drugs.And as some members of the hip-hop counterculture became targets of police harassment, they began to fight the power with work that was bold and demanding..In the second episode of “Street Disciples,” Trymaine Lee hears from: Melle Mel of the Furious Five, fashion designer Dapper Dan, graffiti artist Cey Adams, sociologist Tricia Rose, historian Mark Anthony Neal, and hip-hop activist Harry Allen. Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.For a transcript, please visit our homepage.For More: Street Disciples, part one: The Concrete JungleCheck out the Into America playlist on Spotify

Street Disciples: Broken Glass Everywhere

Hip-hop is a rose that grew from concrete. And there’s no other place it could have grown than the fertile soil of the South Bronx. At the beginning of the 20th Century, urban planning destroyed neighborhoods and led to white flight, and tall high-density towers re-arranged the landscape of the borough. Around the same time, a massive wave of Caribbean immigrants and Black Southerners were migrating to the South Bronx, leading to a convergence of cultures that would light a spark for the birth of hip-hop in the summer of 1973.Hip-hop is turning 50 this year. So, for Black History Month, Into America is presenting “Street Disciples: Politics, Power, and the Rise of Hip-Hop.” Trymaine Lee is looking back on the political conditions and policies that have inspired half a century of hip-hop, and how over time, hip-hop began to shape America. On part one of “Street Disciples,” how the concrete jungle of New York in the 1970s led to the birth and spread of hip-hop. Trymaine is joined by: Kool DJ Red Alert, DJ Grandwizzard Theodore, historian Mark Anthony Neal, sociologist Tricia Rose, and journalist Davey D.Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.For a transcript, please visit our homepage.Check out our previous Black History series here: Reconstructed: Birth of a Black NationHarlem on My Mind: Jacob Lawrence

Street Disciples: The Concrete Jungle

Into America with Trymaine Lee is nominated for two NAACP Image Awards! And we need your vote to win. To vote, click HERE. (Or type in your browser: vote.naacpimageawards.net)Scroll to the bottom to find the podcast section. Then select Into America for both “Outstanding News & Information Podcast,” as well as “Outstanding Society & Culture Podcast.”Once you're done, hit “cast your vote.” And remember to spread the word! Once you’ve voted, share the news with your circles. You can tag the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.Voting closes on Friday, February, 10th. Thanks for supporting Into America!

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Trayvon Martin’s hoodie was never supposed to end up in an exhibit on Reconstruction at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. But then the 17-year-old boy was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida, by a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, while carrying nothing but a cell phone, a pack of Skittles, and a can of iced tea. Kidada Williams, a history professor at Wayne State University tells Trymaine Lee that she sees a clear through line between Reconstruction and Trayvon Martin. “The way he was targeted for minding his own business, the way he was demonized, and in some cases blamed for his own [death] is very consistent with what happened during Reconstruction,” she explains.Like Emmett Till before him, Trayvon’s story galvanized a people and changed a nation. Protests sprang up across the country as the story gained traction, helped in large part by Trymaine Lee’s reporting. A generation of young people became activists, and the phrase “Black Lives Matter” became a rallying cry.But when Trayvon became a face of the movement, it came with a cost — born largely by those closest to Trayvon, like his dad, Tracy Martin. "I’m giving to society, but do society really understand what I've given up?” he asks. "We don't look to bury our kids. We don't look to eulogize them or try to define what their legacy is to be. And during that process, man, it just, it really tears you up.” (Original release date: February 24, 2022)Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica.For More: Reconstructed: Birth of a Black NationReconstructed: In Search of the Promised LandReconstructed: Keep the Faith, Baby

Reconstructed: The Book of Trayvon (2022)

On June 17, 2015, a white extremist shot and killed nine Black people in the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina as they gathered for a bible study group. This wasn’t the first time Mother Emanuel had been attacked. In the 1820s, white people burned down Mother Emanuel in retaliation over a failed slave rebellion. For years, the congregation was forced to meet in secret. But through all the violence and backlash, the Black congregants relied on their faith, and during Reconstruction, they rebuilt. Mother Emanuel’s history mirrors the story of Black America. Through the centuries, faith has helped Black people find freedom, community, and strength, even in the face of violence.This tradition of faith in the face of backlash holds true today. Trymaine talks with Bree Newsome Bass, whose incredible protest of scaling a 30-foot pole to take down the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state capitol made her an icon of the movement. Bree’s actions led to the permanent removal of the Confederate flag from the state house. And she tells Trymaine that faith was the foundation of it all.(Original release date: February 17, 2022)Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica.For more: Reconstructed: Birth of a Black NationReconstructed: In Search of the Promised LandReconstructed: The Book of Trayvon 

Reconstructed: Keep the Faith, Baby (2022)

Into America is a show about being Black in America. These stories explore what it means to hold truth to power and this country to its promises. Told by people who have the most at stake.

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Into America

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