Jeff Chang
Acting
Biography
Jeff Chang is an American historian, journalist, and music critic on hip-hop music and culture. His writing has appeared in URB, BOMB, San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Vibe, Spin, The Nation, and Mother Jones. He has also been featured on NPR.
Known For

Investigates a wide range of historically compelling topics and the mysteries surrounding each including the Titanic, D.B. Cooper, Roswell, John Wilkes Booth, and more. Fresh, new evidence and perspectives will be showcased, such as never-before-released documents, personal diaries and DNA evidence.
History's Greatest Mysteries

Unknown histories take center stage as the hitmakers themselves - from ABBA to T-Pain - explore dimensions of pop music you never knew existed.
This Is Pop

Explore the cultural and political milestones of the 2000s decade, including technological triumphs like the iPhone and social media, President George W. Bush’s war on terror and response to Hurricane Katrina, Barack Obama’s presidential election and the financial crisis, hip-hop’s rise to dominance and a creative renaissance in television.
The 2000s
"We Gon' Be Alright" is a digital series that explores the social divide over race in the 21st Century United States. Inspired by Jeff Chang's best-selling, critically acclaimed collection of essays, we discover a nation of historically unprecedented diversity becoming more separate and more unequal. Each episode examines a different aspect of a profound puzzle: Silicon Valley resegregation, Hollywood images, Harvard admissions, and more. The series asks the questions: why and how did we become so divided? What can we do now to be alright?
We Gon' Be Alright

Explore the music tied to iconic moments in history, from the March on Washington to the riots at Stonewall, to the moon landing to Hurricane Katrina.
Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History

In 1971, after being rejected by Hollywood, Bruce Lee returned to his parents’ homeland of Hong Kong to complete four iconic films. Charting his struggles between two worlds, this portrait explores questions of identity and representation through the use of rare archival footage, interviews with loved ones and Bruce’s own writings.
Be Water

An in-depth and provocative look at the 1992 Los Angeles riots exploring the roots of civil unrest in California and the relationship between African Americans and LAPD.
Burn Motherfucker, Burn!
Bronx 79 will provide the definitive history of the birth of hip-hop culture – the largest and most impactful youth movement of the past 40 years. Employing first-person interviews of the people that were there at the beginning, original footage and photographs of that era, and unique recreations through stylized animation and live-action we will finally see the untold story of the pioneers, the fans and the world of the South Bronx in 1979.
Bronx 79

Jeff Chang visits East Palo Alto, a historically Black and Latino community in the heart of Silicon Valley, to hang out with rapper, dancer and performer Isaiah Phillips a.k.a. Randy McPhly, who appeared in Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” video. They talk about the domino effects of gentrification.