When an 8-year-old Cazhhmere walked onto the set of a hip hop music video, she left feeling one thing: empowerment. Inspired by the lights, the music and the stories, she decided early on that filmmaking was the sandbox she wanted to play in. "I don't want to be like the girls that are on camera. I want to be that woman that's behind the camera," she says.

Recently, after solidifying her place in music video history directing over 100 videos, Cazhhmere stepped in front of the camera to create the documentary Deeply Rooted about her family and their long-standing Canadian ancestry, which has been routinely questioned.

In the above video, watch as Cazhhmere discusses Rooted and also takes us through the 1990s hip-hop videos and films that drove her to create her own work for artists like Classified, JRDN, Juicy J, Howie D (yes, that Howie D, of the Backstreet Boys) and many others.

Check out Deeply Rooted at CBC Short Docs.