Beat Street - Observation Paper

Zifeng. Mi

Prof. Parker

10.22.2016

Observation Paper #1

Beat Street

     I watched the whole documentary of Beat Street; unlike the typical documentary, it was actually very lively, vivid, and more like a movie. The full story was about this DJ Kenny Kirkland and his friends tried to make their way up to perform in New York City's top nightclubs. Throughout this story, a lot of emotion got involved. Success, frustration, betrayal, remorse, stress, etc. Along with all the emotions, the development of all kind of forms of Hip-Hop elements was reflected incisively as well. Correspond to our discussion and assignment about the 4 elements of Hip-Hop culture, there were lots of fragments in the movie showed one or more about them.

     For example, the background of this documentary happened in the South Bronx, which was exactly the root of the culture of Hip-Hip. Like we read in our first assignment and also showed in the documentary; because of the political reason and social reasons, the urban decayed to the point that pretty much in a destroyed situation, from burnt-out and abandoned buildings to subway cars and tunnels covered with graffiti. The documentary also included B-Boying, DJing, Rap and Graffiti together as hip hop culture.

     At very beginning of the documentary, the main character Kenny Kirkland was preparing a party in an abandoned building. An unwelcome character Lee busted in, started break-dancing and got involved in a dance battle. Then it showed how Kenny started to DJing in the biggest night club in NYC, the Roxy. What I found was interesting in is that DJing wasn’t that recognized in terms of contribution of Hip-Hop culture at the early time. However, this documentary seems contextualizes the DJ as one of the premier conduits of the culture with equal footing among B-boys and MC’s.

     In conclusion, I think this documentary had impacted on me to re-consider the power of Hip-Hop culture. Like I described in my first assignment, it’s amazing to see people live in such a horrendous situation still strive to create their “little interest”, which is Hip-Hop.

     Another take away I learned from this documentary would be the ideology and value conflict between two different groups; the Bronx locals and the authorities or uptown vs downtown. Through the conflict between B-boys and the authorities, I felt like they tried to work through and lead the situation into a more lucrative and popular scene. (Correct if my though is wrong, kind of uncertain about this)