Beat Street - The Movie

C4 is screening the movie Beat Street tonight, and I can't wait. For anyone into B-Boy culture (rap music, breakdancing, and graffiti) back in the early 80's then you'll know just how important it was. It reflected the lifestyle we were living (as best we could half way around the world), like no other. Sure, there was 1979's The Warriors but even back then we knew it was bit silly - no real gang would dress like they did in that movie. When Beat Street came out it was like our existence had been validated.

When it was released in 1984 I was managing NZ breakdance champions The Megazoids, and through Warner Records (I was also a DJ at the time) I managed to wangle us into a special screening for just us, the movie distributor, and Warners (who had the soundtrack). We were very excited going in to the movie and we weren't disappointed. Sure it had flaws (some of the acting is so cheesy and we didn't give a toss about the 'love' scenes) but there was plenty of dance action courtesy of various battles between NYC Breakers and the Rock Steady Crew ( there's even more on the DVD release, with lots of scenes deleted from the movie now included).

We left the screening buzzing, with both the record and film distributors suitably hyped that the movie was going to be BIG. So if it came to your local cinema you can thank us because they didn't really know sh!t about breakdancing/b-boys or how big the film would be in NZ - until we schooled 'em. Junior Satele (one of the Megazoids, 11 y.o. at the time) remembers it thusly on Facebook:

Hey Nick, I remember when you got us Megazoids into the special advance screening ... and it was a morning screening so I had to skip school for the morning!... I was at Kowhai Intermediate in Kingsland!!!... I remember loving the movie to bits and getting back to School and telling everyone about it and then at lunchtime going hard out trying to bust moves I’d just seen... on the cardboard outside the classroom!!! LOL... Those were the days!!! ;)

Beat Street was released in 1984 and tells the story of Kenny, a young hip-hop artist living in the Bronx with his younger brother Lee and their mother Cora ("eat your eggs, or I'll break your legs"). Kenny dreams of making it big as a DJ and playing at The Roxy, and Lee is part of a break-dancing crew. Various rap groups, break dancers, and singers make appearances including The Treacherous Three, The System, Rock Steady Crew, Soul Sonic Force & Shango, The Magnificent Force, New York City Breakers, Melle Mel & TheFurious Five, Tina B., Us Girls, and Afrika Bambaataa.

The plot was clearly written to win over a mainstream audience (someone dies due to gang violence, friends decide to put on a show to celebrate his life and defeat the stereotypes) but if you look you'll see various threads including one 'inspired' by the seminal graffiti documentary Style Wars. If you have the DVD you can pretty much fast forward through any scenes with Kenny, and just stick to the bits with Lee and Ramon. As I recall the Megazoids decided at some stage that Breakin’ was a better movie (it’s not), but that was only because Breakin’ didn’t waste too much time on the plot and just kept slamming in the dance sequences.

This is one of many Beat Street clips available on You Tube. I picked this one because you can hear Lee say "let's serve these dudes man". I love that kids today think their slang is all so new.



Actually, that clip is too choreographed. This one is more real;