Hip-hop films represent the appearance of a new Hollywood genre, first manifested in 1982 with the release of Wild Style by Charlie Ahearn. Broadly defined, this is new African-American-themed cinema, which makes hip-hop films the successors of the style, content, and concerns of the Blaxploitation film in Hollywood of the 70s: low-budget crime films with excessive violence and sexual imagery featuring African-American characters in urban settings, usually with a soul music score. Therefore, hip-hop films are the second wave of the expression of aesthetics and ideals in cinema related specifically to African-Americans and African-American culture.
"Wild Style" (1982)
Historically-important hip-hop films were made throughout the 80s like Style Wars (1983) by Tony Silver, and Beat Street (1984) by Stan Lathan, though films like Breakin’ (1984) by Joel Silberg and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984) by Sam Firstenberg and others of the decade were not always proficient in form or profound in outlook; the hip-hop film matured artistically in the 90s, sparked by the appearance of its first true masterpiece: Do the Right Thing (1989) by Spike Lee. Immediately afterwards a steady flow of aesthetically-advanced hip-hop films emerged: King of New York (1990) by Abel Ferrara, House Party (1990) by Reginald Hudlin, Boyz n the Hood (1991) by John Singleton, to name a few.
"Breakin'" and "Breakin' 2" (1984)
Hip-hop films primarily feature the aesthetics and culture of hip-hop, while also featuring hip-hop music as a score. Hip-hop artists commonly appear in these films as lead actors, and the films are concerned with urban stories about and related to African-American youth of the post-Blaxploitation/post-civil rights era: the hip-hop generation.
Genres can most immediately and accurately be defined by setting and conflict; the hip-hop film is set in the urban inner-city, and the conflict is between African-Americans – with each other, within themselves, and with society at large. But the hip-hop film is a transgeneric cinema – it travels across multiple Hollywood genres, sometimes fusing more than one genre together in a postmodern pastiche that is characteristic of hip-hop in general. Hip-hop films have been made as documentaries, musicals, biopics, comedies, dramas, thrillers, gangster films, and more.
"Menace II Society" (1993) by Albert and Allen Hughes
The most unique iconic elements of hip-hop films are young African-American males themselves. The enterprising Fade, played by Fab 5 Freddy, in Wild Style, who dreams of exporting hip-hop culture from the inner-city to the masses; the restless Mookie, played by Spike Lee, in Do the Right Thing, who dreams of getting paid; the idealistic Tre, played by Cuba Gooding, Jr., in Boyz n the Hood, who dreams of marrying his high school sweetheart. They are the subjects and also the audience of the hip-hop film; a symbol that points both inwards and outwards, and they symbolize both America’s nightmare, “young, black, and don’t give a fuck,” like O-Dog, played by Larenz Tate, in Menace II Society (1993, by Albert and Allen Hughes), and also the brilliant creators of one of the most distinctive and powerful cultural exports in America’s history: hip-hop, the new American dream.
*Originally printed in the program of the Yugoslav Cinematheque (March 2009)
"Do the Right Thing" (1989) by Spike Lee
You may also enjoy the following articles centered around the Hip-Hop music and culture:
Hip-Hop Culture: The Four Elements
Hip-Hop as Context: Shakur’s “Blasphemy”
When the Smoke Clears: An Interview with Ian Inaba of the Guerrilla News Network