Krush Groove

The storyline is a familiar about trying to make it big and how sometimes that means selling your soul to the devil but find redemption in the end etc. The difference here is many of rap music's early stars take a turn at acting. They do all right. I think that Blair Underwood inspired them to do a decent turn.

The main attraction now is the nostalgia of seeing Kurtis Blow, Run-DMC, The Fat Boys and New Edition perform. Also there are cameos from the young Beastie Boys and a skinny LL Cool J.

This film isn't an award winner but it is a must see for all Hip Hop historians. Loosely based on the life of producer Russel Simmons this film takes us back to the early days of Hip-Hop when rap was just starting to break into the mainstream. Blair Underwood plays Russel and everyone else (Run DMC, Fat Boys, Sheila E, New Edition, Beastie Boys, L.L. Cool J, etc..) play themselves. I think, if anything, this film gives fans an idea of what it was like for young rappers, producers and other musicians from NYC in the early eighties. I think the film could have been better if it was a little grittier and honest, but if it was than Rap and Hip-Hop may not have blown up the way it did into mainstream culture.

Russell Walker co-owns a struggling record company which has a big hit--'King of Rock' by Run-DMC. The record is selling so well the company cannot produce enough copies, and they don't have the money for more until the records sell--which they won't until the company has something to ship. The banks don't want to lend to this company because rap is something new and strange. So Russell has to deal with less than savory characters. Meanwhile, the guys in Run-DMC take advantage of the opportunity to make themselves famous, getting involved with a major record producer.

Russell is also in charge of a talent show which includes a number of famous rappers and musicians. However, even though the credits say the Russell character is based on the real Russell Simmons, who was a producer of the movie, at the end of the credits we are told the characters are fictional. So even though a number of well-known rappers perform in this movie, using the same name as in real life, and even though those who belong to groups are in groups with the same name as their real-life counterparts, these are not the real stories of the performers. It would have been too much of a coincidence, though, for so many famous performers to have met in this way when they were unknown.

I am a 44-year-old white man who likes easygoing music such as Mantovani, Lawrence Welk, Sinatra, Perry Como and Glenn Miller. Still, The Fat Boys were the first rap group I ever heard (if you don't count Blondie), and they performed without instruments, using their voices for percussion. I enjoyed hearing them do this and wish they had done it more in the movie (they actually had 'real' instruments backing them up which, unfortunately, weren't 'real' like so much of 80s music). But I liked it when one of the guys did this in biology class and got them kicked out, and when they tried doing it for the bouncer where the talent show was being held. And one of the movie's best moments came when the guys saw a sign at Sbarro's which said 'All You Can Eat' for $3.99. The Fat Boys, who were The Disco 3 at first, were a lot of fun.

Other than The Fat Boys, I liked LL Cool J the best. But the musical performances in this movie were first-rate, whether they were really my taste or not, and this was the reason to watch--not acting or writing. Sheila E. especially came across well on stage. She was very confident and quite talented at singing, rapping, dancing, playing drums, playing the guitar (now I really liked this, since it was jazz-style rather than rock). As for her acting--well, we can't be good at everything.

Blair Underwood is considered a respected actor these days, and I just went through the sad experience of seeing his last appearance on 'LAX', where he and Heather Locklear were so wonderful together. But I couldn't see his potential here.

This movie was pretty good, and highly recommended in my opinion for fans of old-school rap.

This is a movie about the struggles of early rap groups trying to make it big in the 80's when rap was not a popular music genre. This is not the most dramatic of movies by any stretch of the imagination, but if you like old school rap acts like RUN-DMC, The Beastie Boys, The Fat Boys, and LL Cool J you will find this movie entertaining. However if you are not familiar with the 80's rap scene you may not be very impressed with this movie. I though it would be a really stupid movie at first, but once I watched it I was impressed.

Krush Groove is the most underrated rock n roll movie of the 1980s. Is it the Best music film of the 80s? No that title belongs to Purple Rain. Actually Krush Groove attempts to redo Rain's successful formula, using talented musicians generally playing themselves in a fictitious story with some realistic elements. It actually came out a year or so too early, with rap and hip hop still generally a black phenomenon despite Blondie's #1 pop `Rapture'. (Debbie Harry makes an appearance here portraying a club singer.) The one `Actor' not playing himself was Blair Underwood who played the character Russell Walker (While the REAL Russell Simmons played a stage hand named Crocket)

The story deals with a number of rap artists Run DMC, Kurtis Blow and the Fat boys in their efforts to make it big as hip hop stars. It deals with the good and bad of having a hit record on a small independent record label, competition between two brothers over the heart of a young female singer (Sheila E.), the consequences of borrowing money from a loan shark, the opportunity to sign with a major label and a talent contest looking for new hip hop talent. The contest includes an appearance from New Edition, an all too brief appearance from future superstars The Beastie Boys and an in studio audition from LL Cool J. The film was rated `R' generally for some mild violence and usage of the `F' word. (Six instances where two would automatically mean an `R' rating) It didn't do too hot at the box office. I had stated that the film came out a year or so too early. The reason I stated this was that in 1986, one year following this film's release, Run DMC's cover of Aerosmith's Walk This Way got heavy airplay on white radio, even going to number1 on album rock radio in Aerosmith's homebase of Boston MA. This success opened the door for The Beastie Boys, The Fat Boys, LL Cool J, Will Smith (known at that time as The Fresh Prince) and a large number of other hip hop and rap artists to score BIG on the Pop singles and pop album charts.