Raised by her mother, musician and visual artist Waberi, Folayan grew up in South Central Los Angeles,[1] as well as spending five years living in a rural area in Hawaii.

[1] She initially expected to document the experience via print journalism, but was struck by a sense of contrast between the city she was witnessing and the way it was being represented in the newsmedia, telling Filmmaker Magazine: "what was being put on the news was only catching the surface of the issues.

"[7] Seeking a longer format that would allow space for such an exploration, she set out to make a film, working with cinematographer Lucas Alvarado Farrar, a Columbia classmate of Folayan, and co-director Damon Davis, a St. Louis-based artist.

[11][12] In The Guardian, Jordan Hoffman gave the film five stars and praised Folayan and Davis's directorial choice to make a "tremendous end run around mainstream news outlets and the agenda-driven narratives that emerge, particularly on television" by not using "images...leaked by law enforcement or stage managed for the media, but [which] come directly from the people who lived through the violent events of 2014.

[19][20][21][22][23][24] Folayan was a lead organizer of the New York City Millions March,[6][1] the December 2014 demonstration protesting police killings in the wake of Eric Garner's death; attendance estimates ranged from 12,000 to 50,000 participants.

[6] Folayan directed the inaugural episode of Get Schooled, Glamour Magazine's video series on girls overcoming major hurdles in pursuit of education; she interviewed Kylie, a teenager from Ottawa, Kansas.