The birth of Hip-Hop in the disco era? Sure this will be interesting to some but not to the masses…right? Maybe to those from the Bronx that experieced it..but that’s it..right? Wait…what? Baz Luhrmann is attached to the project….take all the money you need to produce this soon to be work of art. It truly is that… a work of art. Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge) takes his brilliant story telling with integration of music right at the right time and takes this historical drama into more than a retrospective of the birth of Hip-Hop and turns it into an Everyman tale about coming out of the ashes like a Phoenix.
The story centers around Ezekiel (Justice Smith) who is a talented poet and is seeking a way to showcase his talent to verbalize his words. He meets Shaolin (Shameik Moore) a Padawan DJ, and together with the Get Down crew become legends.
I am usually leery of music shows claiming that the stars have talent and the music is awesome when at best it is usually mediocre lowering audience talent expectations across the world; but The Get Down has the talent with the rhymes, the beat, and the sound…it’s all good.
Netflix is doing something new and releasing 1/2 a season now and the other half in early 2017. I love that the first half felt like a whole story, a 7 hour movie for those who binge watch..I cannot wait for part 2.
Grade: A+