From the Bronx to the Bay Area, from park jams to concert halls, Scratch documents the history, culture, and chronology of hip-hop DJs and their more technically advanced cousins, turntablists. Using colorful artist interviews, vintage footage, live concert shots, and creative visual trickery, filmmaker Doug Pray — best known for the documentary Hype!, a clever examination of Seattle’s grunge explosion — makes the insular world of vinyl obsessives and turntable virtuosos vibrant and accessible enough to lure even the most hip-hop-ignorant viewers.

Boasting more hand-held shots than the QVC Channel, Scratch follows the path of the DJs from their beginnings at the focal point of hip-hop on through the lean years when rappers hogged the fame, and then into the turntablist era — when virtuoso auteurs turned the style into a specialized micro-genre that resembles a combination of solo jazz percussion and musique concrète. Along the way there’s tons of priceless footage: a late-night jam session at Q-Bert’s house; DJ Shadow waxing philosophical in a basement of dusty vinyl; pretty much any hip-hop DJ worth noting. Although Pray lays out the history and ideological positions of the subculture, he never really delves into the social, technological, and psychological analysis that the subject is crying out for. But once you’ve seen an awe-inspiring Q-Bert piece that rivals the intensity and rhythmic fluidity of, say, vintage ’50s bebop, all is forgiven.