dream hampton first attracted attention in the '90s when she was writing for the hip-hop bible, The Source, but what most people don't realize is that writing was simply a diversion from hampton's real love, film.

"You can't help how people identify you, but film was the only reason I was in New York in the first place," hampton, a Detroit native, told The Root. Her film-directing credits include an award-winning short called "I Am Ali" in 2002. While attending NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, hampton filmed hip-hop icon Christopher "Notorious B.I.G" Wallace for a documentary-film class, and that footage was later used on an Emmy-winning VH1 documentary, Behind the Music: The Notorious B.I.G, for which she was the associate producer. Now hampton is preparing for this month's DVD release of her newest film, Black August: A Hip-Hop Documentary Concert, at the Sundance Film Festival.

Black August, which premiered in August at Lincoln Center, combines archival footage from Black August Hip Hop Project concerts, while also telling the story of the black liberation struggle through the lives of black political prisoners, such as former Black Panther Assata Shakur, an African American in Cuban exile for the past 25 years. It was Shakur and fellow exile Nahanda Abiodun who, in 1998, inspired the founding of the Black August Hip Hop Project.

Sponsored by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) -- a political-action organization with eight chapters nationwide, and created by activist and MXGM director Lumumba Bandele -- the Black August Hip Hop Project uses hip-hop music to bring awareness to the plight of black political prisoners while also helping fundraise for various causes, such as international cultural exchanges with artists from Cuba, Tanzania and South Africa.

hampton helped found the Brooklyn, N.Y., chapter of MXGM, organizing hip-hop concerts that highlighted various causes. "Our very first fundraisers were designed to help people with some of the most basic of needs," said hampton. "A lot of the time, we'd raise money for people who needed to have a lawyer at their hearing."