'The Sixth Borough' screening reminds audiences of Long Island's role in hip hop history

Before they were topping music charts and shifting the culture, some of hip-hop's pioneers were just Long Island kids: riding bikes, playing in the school band, gathering for cyphers in high school cafeterias.

That little known history is the subject of "The Sixth Borough," a documentary focusing on rappers and groups who came up in the region, from Amityville's De La Soul and Patchogue's Biz Markie to Hempstead's Public Enemy.

The 90-minute film premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival and was screened to a packed audience at Hofstra University on Saturday. The filmmakers, including director Jason Pollard and producers Julian Petty and Andrew Theodorakis, said during a panel discussion after that they wanted to give Long Island the recognition it deserves.

"The vision was to give these guys the proper respect, give the region its proper respect in the founding of hip-hop's gold era," Pollard said.

Bill Stephney is a Hempstead graduate who hosted an iconic hip-hop radio show at Adelphi University and became president of the rap label Def Jam Recordings. He compared the Island's emerging hip-hop culture in the '80s to London's punk scene in the '70s or the rise of grunge in Seattle in the '90s.

"The number of top stars from the music and from the culture just were overwhelming," he said.

Keith Boxley, better known as Keith Shocklee from Public Enemy, said appearing on Stephney's college radio show changed their trajectory.

"Our families was like, 'when y'all going to get a real damn job?' ... It just so happened that this business became what it was. ... That was like being on a major station," he said Saturday.

The documentary also explored the socioeconomic factors that shaped the music and culture as Black families moved to the Long Island suburbs from the five boroughs.

"It helped make sense to explain what was going on around us, between the crack era and how it was decimating our communities to the redlining and rampant racism that we were experiencing," said Tara Martin, a strategist for the Hip Hop Alliance, a group that promotes fair wages, retirement and health benefits for hip hop artists.

Martin, raised on Staten Island, said Long Island groups like De La Soul expanded what hip-hop meant.

"They gave [Black nerds] like me ... a voice. They gave us an ability to utilize hip hop and make this lane for us," she said, adding that Long Island should have a hip-hop museum.

Martin also focused on the importance of artists to own and profit from their music. De La Soul was locked in a long legal battle with their former label, Tommy Boy Records, to regain control of their master recordings, which they won back in 2021.

Petty, who grew up in Amityville, is also an entertainment attorney who worked closely with the group on the case. "You're talking about a little kid that heard their demo in seventh grade. To be able to help get their IP back, it was amazing," he said in an interview.

Hempstead Village Mayor Waylyn Hobbs Jr. attended the screening and said the history is a source of pride for the area.

"Public Enemy used to rehearse right on South Franklin Street in the village," he said in an interview. "We have many, many talents that came out of here. This is a way of reminding Hempstead, Nassau County, how much we have contributed to hip hop music."

The documentary is screening at film festivals throughout the region. For information, follow the film on Instagram @sixthboroughfilm.