AMC and The Roots are partnering up to turn writer Shea Serrano’s The Rap Yearbook into a TV show. AMC will be producing a year-round documentary series “AMC Visionaries,” pairing up with artists of various genres to tell their stories and histories, straight from the artists’ mouths.
The Roots already have a pretty good gig as the house band on The Tonight Show after being hand chosen by Jimmy Fallon in 2014. Since then, they’ve been surprised at work by Dave Chappelle, rocked a super-creative, office-themed remix with Migos, and most recently welcomed back a member of pop royalty in Jessie Ware, all while still finding time to rock live sets at festivals like SXSW.
Their newest endeavor finds band frontmen Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter executive-producing “AMC Visionaries: Rap Yearbook” along with Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney and Stacey Offman. The six-part series is slated to premiere on AMC in 2018.
The show will take its inspiration from Shea Serrano’s New York Times best-selling book The Rap Yearbook, and much like the book itself, will debate, deconstruct and illuminate the most important moments and songs from the biggest years in the history of hip-hop. Each episode will be centered on the story of one key song — like the chapters of the book — and will feature a special guest MC. Fans of Shea, The Roots, or rap music in general won’t want to miss it — the book was not only informative, but fun, and both will be sure inspire both old school rap heads and newcomers to hip-hop alike.
