Also well worth watching, both for the hip hop history and a study of New York showing its best and worst:

"NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1080761/

When I first heard about this project I was positive it would be a VH1 suckfest, but when I saw it was stunned. It's really good, quite accurate. Those were wild times in New York.