The Get Down

I watch a lot of TV shows; most of them in fact. This is the one that has me swapping from VLC to Wikipedia to check facts. I have never been so intrigued to learn so much about an oppressed past that happened so recently in my own country. How do we not know about these things? Fortunately. we soon all will.

This show will bring out the Get Down in you. You probably don't even know what that means. I didn't. But you soon will. We all need it, and it is here for your learning.

Get down my friends, and understand what that means.

I saw part one minutes ago. As someone to whom Grandmaster Flash and the likes of him is a big part of growing up the movie strikes a cord with me by nature.

But apart from that I like the wild mixture of dance movie, musical, Hip Hop party, poetry slam, documentary, Kungfu flick, coming of age, spraying, "mastering" the ceremony, DJing, comedy, drama and romance. I recommend to watch the documentary Rumble Kings before watching The Get Down to fetch some historical background information.

Hip Hop with its sampling, mixing, scratching and juggling with words opened up a musical playground for audience and artists. The movie transforms this successfully into visuals.

As someone who's not a fan of rap music, I still find the historical aspects and how the elements of hip-hop came together very intriguing! All the characters are interesting and entertaining in their own ways which make me want to know more about them--making for very vivid episodes (it seems each character has their own mood that they add). Hopefully, next season we'll get to see more of those stories... As more of a disco fan, I found those parts to not be as interesting sadly but it could be because of the transition that disco was going through at the time. The parts about the music business was really eye-opening in seeing how it operate(s)(d). Hopefully, the show keeps up the cultural and historical elements that make this show feel like a time-warp, while telling us more about the non-main characters.

This is a great series. There are little things that they got wrong that you would only know if you grew up then... some songs that were a year or two off but it does a fantastic job of capturing life in N.Y. in the 70s.. I graduated from Taft H.S. in 1973 so I know the flavor.. I recognize some of the places and I love the way they blended historic footage with film footage to create a nice image of The Bronx in the 70s. Some of the stuff .. like some of the gang stuff.. was a little over done.. When I was coming up the gangs I knew about in my area were The Black Pearls, The Young Saigons, Savage Skulls and The Black Spades .. there were many others.. but I was not a gang banger. When I moved to the Belmont Ave Ave area the Ching A Ling Nomads had a clubhouse right around the corner on Arthur Ave.. This series does a good job of capturing the fashions and dialog of the time as well..

Perfect, Perfect , Perfect depiction of the start of RAP in the bronx. Having, been younger in those days and leaving in the east coast. People like granmaster Flash, Kool Herc, etc.. They were the people you'd daydream about, without really knowing anything about them (pre-internet). Now, the way, the show goes on, it shows all these persona's as seen through the eyes-of fresh young dudes. Example-the way-Shaolin fantastic is represented-how they focus on his red pumas--and how the kids talk about him "His hands are samurai swords". This is the way, anybody who was there(youngins)-remember that time. Now, some people say It's not gritty (If you want gritty-see Sin HOMBRE), the whole point of rap, was that in was against violence- so, it actuality, this is the memory that will have stayed with the youth, more than the violence-the media loves to OFFICIALLY potray as a BRONX staple. Now, the director is Baz Luhrman, and man, did he potray the music in the most perfect way, the way he could parallelly show some rap group trying to rap, and and the same time a disco pre-queen singining. No, other director could have really showed the music so finely as Baz. If you want nitty -gritty streets-watch the Warriors. If you're genuinely interested in RAP the beginnings, before Gangster rappers. Then run and watch this.