Dream Hampton is an American writer, filmmaker, and activist. In the 1990s, she attained prominence as a hip-hop journalist who, employing a literary style and nuanced awareness, intimately profiled leading rappers. Around 2000, she shifted mainly to filmmaking, and has often applied it toward social activism. She was executive producer of the 2019 documentary seriesSurviving R. Kelly, which, breaking ratings records, may have spurred Kelly's prosecution. In 2019, Hampton was included on Time magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential persons, the Time 100.
Early life
Born in 1971 in Detroit, Michigan, Hampton was named after Martin Luther King's celebrated speech, "I Have a Dream". At age 18, Hampton enrolled at New York University, where she studied filmmaking. While a student, she created a documentary featuring rapper Christopher "The Notorious B.I.G." Wallace.
Career
Hampton spent about 18 months at The Source, a hip-hop magazine, which she joined as an intern photo editor, but left as an editor and writer. In a seminal editorial, she had covered Dr. Dre's alleged beating of Dee Barnes. Hampton was editor-in-chief of the short-lived magazine Rap Pages. She contributed to Vibe magazine, launched in 1993, for its first 15 years, and also contributed to Essence, to The Village Voice, and to Spin. In late 1998, after contributing to Vibe a feature article on rapper Jay-Z, Dream sought to step away from rap journalism to pursue a screenwriting career. "When B.I.G. died", she explained, "I decided I would stop writing about hip hop—nothing inspired me anymore". Her short film I am Ali entered the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, and won "Best Short Film" at Vanity Fair'sNewport Film Festival. Hampton co-produced director Peter Spier's 2007 filmBigger than Life, the first feature-length documentary on the Notorious B.I.G. As a member of the MXGM, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, she sponsored Black August, a yearly benefit concert for political prisoners. Her concert film about it, Black August: A Hip-Hop Documentary Concert, debuted at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 2010. In 2013, she directed Treasure, a documentary on the 2011 killing of Shelley Hilliard, a 19-year-old transgender woman, in Detroit. And she made the short documentary We Demand Justice for Ranisha Mcbride, after organizing the protest for Mcbride. Hampton was executive producer of Surviving R. Kelly, a 2019 documentary series about the decades of sexual-abuse allegations against R. Kelly. The month after its release, R. Kelly was charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Hampton then recounted her 19-year pursuit of Kelly.
