Beats, rhymes and justice: Hip-hop on Rikers Island - Part one
MC and producer Ryan Burvick takes us behind bars on Rikers Island, New York’s largest and troubled jail. He leads a music production programme there called Beats, Rhymes and Justice, which helps inmates write rhymes, make music and imagine their future off the island in a different light. Ayosay has been on Rikers for five months. He is an experienced rapper from New York who dreams of making it in hip hop. Trigger is working on two tracks that express his desire to make a better life for his four-year-old daughter. Suave, a former student from the Beats, Rhymes and Justice programme, has recently been released after spending over two years in jail and is trying to adapt to life at home with his mother in the Bronx.
23 Feb 202050min
Riding the Motel 22: Homeless in California
‘Motel 22’ is an unusual shelter for California’s homeless people. The state is one of the wealthiest in America yet it has the largest population of homeless people – more than 151,000 - in the US. In the Silicon Valley the bus route 22 runs an endless loop from Palo Alto to the Valley’s biggest city, San Jose. Along the way it passes some of the world’s biggest tech giants: Google, Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Facebook. It is the Valley’s only all night bus and many of its night-time passengers ride to keep warm and sleep. For Assignment, Sarah Svoboda takes a ride on the bus, known to many as ‘Motel 22’, to hear the stories of its travellers.(Image: Homeless people riding bus route 22. Credit: Sarah Svoboda/BBC)
20 Feb 202026min
Don't log off: Part one
Alan Dein connects with strangers across the world via social media, exploring the things that unite people across cultures and borders. He speaks to a young gay man in China troubled by homophobia, and an Egyptian woman determined to resist the religious extremism she witnesses in her small city. He also reaches out to an Iranian man struggling to pursue his passion for foreign languages against the odds, and a jobless Nigerian distressed by his inability to provide for his family.
19 Feb 202027min
Crossing Divides: The exchange
Casey Spradley is a beef rancher in New Mexico – and runs a sustainable business with a responsible approach to irrigating the land. Thousands of miles away in Free State South Africa, Tracy Khothule Marobobo is a beef farmer, on land redistributed as part of a post-apartheid settlement. She now faces the challenge of establishing a business in an increasingly difficult climate. Open minded and willing to share their knowledge, the pair begin a digital dialogue that spans continents. Two countries, two women, both with an eye on learning more about each other and their approach to farming land.
18 Feb 202027min
Gospel meets hip-hop
Some of the biggest rappers in the world like Kanye West, Chance the Rapper and Stormzy are combining gospel and hip-hop in their music. It is bringing attention to ‘gospel hip-hop’. Gospel and hip-hop are closely related, but the relationship hasn’t always been an easy one. UK rapper Guvna B has been making faith-based hip-hop for the past 10 years and wants to find out what’s behind this shift. He travels to the USA to meet gospel legends Donald Lawrence and Kierra Sheard, Lecrae and Andy Mineo, Muyiwa Olarewuju and soul singer Samm Henshaw, whose single Church topped the UK charts.
16 Feb 202050min
Reinventing Miss America
How can beauty pageants, a competition steeped in tradition, reinvent itself in the wake of a seismic shift in women’s rights? The #MeToo movement has rocked Hollywood in a way that could not have been imagined a decade ago. It resulted in a new all-female leadership team at Miss America who are busy trying to reform their organisation. But is there really a place for pageants in today’s society? Can a competition known for its glitz and glamour really reinvent its image?
15 Feb 202050min
El Salvador: the story of Karla Turcios
On 14th April 2018 El Salvadorean journalist Karla Turcios was brutally murdered. Twelve days later prosecutors pressed charges against her husband for aggravated femicide. Across the country, her murder triggered outrage and the President of El Salvador announced a national crisis. In El Salvador – which has the highest rate of femicide in Latin America - a woman is killed every 3 days. Six months after Karla’s death, Patricia Sulbaran travelled to El Salvador to tell her story and speak to her family. She also visited the country’s biggest prison to meet Karla’s husband, Mario Hueso. Ever since, Patricia has been following the criminal case against him. Can justice be served in a country where crimes for femicide so often go unpunished? Producer: Poppy Damon(Image: A photograph showing a drawing of Karla Turcios smiling. Credit: BBC/Patricia Sulbarán Lovera)
13 Feb 202026min
Blasian love
Ithra and Tumelo have the world at their feet. Both 24, both in the last year of medical school, both from loving families, and in love. Ithra is Asian and Tumelo black, and both are born in post-apartheid South Africa (part of the Born Free generation). But is love enough to keep them together as they prepare to introduce their families to each other for the first time?
11 Feb 202027min
