Surely by now you’ve heard that legendary North Carolina hip-hop group Little Brother has officially reunited—well, Phonte Coleman and Rapper Big Pooh have, sans 9th Wonder—with plans to tour and release a new album. One can only hope that it drops before their headlining performance in September at Raleigh’s Hopscotch Music Festival, if for no other reason than to give Little Brother acolytes some new material to rap along to in City Plaza.
If not, there’s always their four studio albums, numerous mixtapes, and Phonte and Big Pooh’s solo material to rock to. But perhaps the most important release, and the one that most fans know verbatim, is their critically acclaimed 2003 debut album, The Listening.
Now the story behind the creation of the group and the album is told in a new eleven-minute documentary that dropped on Okayplayer today. Commissioned by the North Carolina Arts Council, The Listening was directed by Holland Randolph Gallagher, who also wrote and directed the ten-episode Durham-based web series Hype. It features interviews with several Justus League members; in-depth talks with 9th, Phonte, and Big Pooh; and a spirited cameo by an early Little Brother apostle, Questlove.
Of course, there’s more to the Little Brother story than just The Listening, and hopefully this isn’t the last collaboration we’ll see between Gallagher, the budding filmmaker, and Little Brother, the renewed N.C. rap legends.
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