This opening image is accompanied by music, which is not identified by title or artist. The lyrics are “Here’s a little story that must be told,” a line from a song by the X-ecutioners. The introduction continues with images of driving into New York City at night.

Grand Wizard Theodore, on how he developed the scratch technique. “This one particular day when I came home from school, you know I usually go home and practice, and I was playing music a little bit too loud. And my moms came and banged on the door, ‘boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.’ ‘If you don’t cut that music down, you’re gonna have to cut it off.’ So while she’s in the doorway, you know, screaming at me, I was still holding the record, and rubbing the record back and forth. When she left, I was like, hm, that’s a pretty good idea. So when she left, I experimented with it. A couple of months. A couple of weeks. Different records. And then, when I was ready, we gave a party, and that’s when I first introduced the scratch.”

Afrika Bambaataa, on the origins of hip-hop. “This is the famous Bronx River Houses, the home of hip-hop. We also used to say ‘the home of God.’ And also ‘Little Vietnam.’ It was crazy at one time, when even police wouldn’t even come in. We had a lot of gang violence happening at the time. Also a lot of social awareness that was also happening at the time. So that’s why we started the Universe of the Zulu Nation. Trying to take a lot of gang affiliations and turn that into something positive. . . . We started organizing a lot of different people in the street. You know, who had different dance groups. You know, B-boys, B-girls, as well as rappers and graffiti artists, all together to make the whole culture.”