Craig Brewer's 'Hustle & Flow' premieres

Why it matters

Hustle & Flow premiered July 22, 2005. Craig Brewer wrote and directed. Terrence Howard stars as DJay, a Memphis pimp trying to record a rap demo with the help of a sound engineer (Anthony Anderson), a sketch artist (DJ Qualls), and his three working women (Taraji P. Henson, Taryn Manning, Paula Jai Parker). The film was developed and produced through John Singleton's company. The big legacy of Hustle & Flow is the song. Three 6 Mafia's "It's Hard out Here for a Pimp," performed in the film as DJay's demo recording, won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Original Song. Three 6 Mafia became the second hip-hop act to win the Oscar (after Eminem in 2003) and the first to perform on the Academy Awards broadcast itself. The Three 6 Mafia performance on the Oscars stage that year is one of the strangest and most beautiful moments in late-2000s Black pop culture: Juicy J and DJ Paul in suits, on the Kodak Theatre stage, performing a song about pimping, in front of a tuxedoed Hollywood audience, in 2006. You should watch the footage. It is unrepeatable.