Beat Street

Unlike Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2, Beat Street was not a simple exploitation film designed to cash in on a hot new trend and make it appealing to the widest, whitest, most family-friendly audience possible. Producers Harry Belafonte and David Picker set out to create an authentic urban melodrama set in the emerging world of New York City hip-hop culture. Much of the movie revolves around incredible feats of skill, but Belafonte, when discussing the differences between his movie and the more popular Cannon production that proceeded it into theaters by a month, was always quick to point out that Beat Street was less about showcasing how cool the dancing was and more about the empowering nature of this new "folk art" and the unerasable, unignorable stamps this movement was having on the life of the city and the larger culture. He set out to humanize an underprivileged population that was vilified by the press, pandered to by both political parties, and left to rot in parts of America's largest city that was decaying all around them.

And while the Breakin' pictures are distinctly West Coast, Beat Street is a very New York movie. Set in the South Bronx, the story centers on a group of poor Black and Puerto Rican teens devoted to each of the key components of '80s hip-hop culture— breakdancing, rapping, DJ'ing, tagging, and graffiti writing. The beautiful graffiti murals showcased in the movie are every bit as important as the music and dancing. The rivalries between the "gangs" here don't unfold with the violence that was standard for the way this population was depicted in film and TV, but via their competing levels of creativity and originality. The film is also cast with real actors in the lead roles and then populates much of the supporting cast with authentic rappers, DJs, etc.

Rae Dawn Chong stars as Tracy Carlson, a composer working at CCNY who hooks up with an aspiring DJ/MC named Kenny "Double K" Kirkland, played by Guy Davis (the only son of acting icons Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee). Kenny's younger brother Lee (Robert Taylor), a breakdancer, and his best friend Ramo (Jon Chardiet), a promoter and graffiti artist, are trying to get into show business by exposing people to hip-hop culture. But the aspirations of these characters aren't really to "make it big." They simply want to practice their craft and be known within their community. The central romance between Tracy and Kenny unfolds with many of the usual ups and downs of a Hollywood melodrama, but the strength of the two leads and the unique setting give everything a fresh vibe.

While not as cartoonishly colorful and silly as Breakin' and especially Breakin' 2, this is hardly a dark and gritty picture. Drug addiction, fighting, trouble with the cops, etc, are all referenced, but they are not this movie's main focus. Beat Street is still an unmistakable 80s time capsule not only in the styles, music, and attitudes it presents but also in the way it follows the expected beats of Hollywood narrative storytelling. It attempts to capture a kind of social realism within a traditional melodramatic structure and largely succeeds. It also features wall-to-wall music. Like Valley Girl before and Dirty Dancing after, the film spawned two bestselling soundtrack albums.