Rick Famuyiwa was just 23 when he made his film debut with 1999's The Wood, a feel-good comedy about one man (Taye Diggs) at his wedding day, reminiscing with his two best friends (Omar Epps, Richard T. Jones) over their more awkward high school romantic relationships. “Nothing's unusual about that, but these are African-American characters, and Hollywood seems incapable of imagining young black men who are not into violence, drugs or trouble,” critic Roger Ebert wrote.

Famuyiwa has created a spiritual sequel to The Wood with Dope, in theaters June 19. This Risky Business-inspired film follows a post-hip hop punk bandleader Malcolm (newcomer Shameik Moore), whose plans to apply to Harvard get thwarted by a drug dealer (A$AP Rocky) planting a huge molly stash in his backpack. Dope, produced by Diddy and Pharrell, is just as lighthearted and sweet as The Wood. But initially, the film faced, in Famuyiwa's words, “universal rejection” from major studios until it received financial backing from Forest Whitaker's Significant Productions and premiered at Sundance and Cannes Film Festival, to rave reviews. The director suspects that, again, Hollywood maintains stringent ideas of “how black people should be.”

Famuyiwa called Myspace to talk how his film debut, Odd Future and his daughter inspired Dope, days prior to its June 19 theatrical release. 

I read that Dope was partially inspired by you discovering Odd Future.

I've been listening to them for three years or so. Two or three of [its members] are from or around Inglewood, so I naturally wanted to hear what the music was like. I remember watching them online and thinking, these guys are exactly like me and my friends growing up. We didn't have the internet, social media and the ability to do these videos and upload them online; if we had, we'd look as crazy as these guys. [laughs] It was like, wow. Look at these kids who are free to express themselves, hanging out at the same burger place my friends did, but having fans who are global and come from every walk of life. [Odd Future], Kendrick Lamar and Pro Era—I was getting into what they were doing, this new energy that was redefining a lot of what I remember growing up.

Dealing with these kids and the places where me and my friends grew up just got thinking that I want to tell that story. I've been able to maintain a career in the Hollywood studio system, but I felt that especially the last project I did was getting me further away from what I originally thought I'd be doing in the business. 

How so?

When you're trying to make films within the studio system and films coming from people of color, even if they're not necessarily about people of color, there are always preconceptions of what these films should be—what's mainstream and what's not. What's niche and what's not. I got tired of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. With Brown Sugar, that was a great place where my voice met the energy of what the studio was doing at the time, but that wasn't the case with the last film I did. I was at a point where I needed to not rewrite a story or come to one that already exists but tell a story that came from me. The Wood was the last time I did that.

So you knew early on that Dope would tackle those perceptions surrounding black people.

My frustration was that there has always been one accepted form at a time of what black representation can be on film: The gangsta film. The black upper class family film. I wanted to highlight those preconceptions and subvert them wherever I could. We're telling specific stories about specific people. That's what cinema is about. I love The Departed even though I'm not from south Boston, and no one would say that experience would speak for an entire culture or race. With Dope, I wasn't trying to redefine the black experience. It was one of many experiences. We just need them all.

I laughed when Malcolm's friend [Jib] says that he's 14 percent African. We tend to forget that America is a melting pot.

This country was built on its diversity. We were either brought here or came from different cultures. Those cultures need to be represented through our society. It's always interesting when I watch a film in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco or any any major city and everyone in it is white. It's always curious to me, the ideas that Hollywood has about the mainstream. That one line about being 14 percent African is a wink and a nod to how we all come from a mixed culture. That makes all of us part of it. 

What was your favorite Dope scene to film?

All the stuff with the band was my favorite. I'm such a frustrated musician. So to be able to imagine having a band in high school was exciting. I'm in the studio with Pharrell, then taking this music on set to three really talented kids. It was like shooting a music video, especially the big frat party scene.

Did you know early on that Malcolm and his friends would be in a punk band?

Yeah. Even though Odd Future, Pro Era and A$AP Mob helped inspire the movie, I didn't necessarily want these kids to be in a rap group. That would be expected. So the idea was to turn that on its ear and have a punk group that is still influenced by hip-hop and everything else they have access to. For me [Dope] is the convergence of all the stuff that I like. I am as much into hip-hop as I am with bands like the Thermals, Bad Brains and Dead Kennedys. 

But younger listeners also have had more access to music. So to see a rap-inspired punk band felt true to how we listen to music now.

That was part of the commentary, how these kids would express themselves in a way that reflected all that they had access to. When I was growing up, there were these things called record stores. You would have to go into the store and either find the exact thing you wanted or select something and hope it was cool. These kids have access to everything. I have a teenage daughter. Me and my wife will talk about Marvin Gaye, and she'll pull it up on her phone a second later.

Dope is in theaters June 19. Find out where it's playing near you.