The Get Down
Too bad everybody just can’t get on board with good stuff. The cancellation of The Get Down is why we can’t have nice things. It’s like a time machine that takes you simultaneously back in time to the birth of hip-hop in the Bronx and to the future of what good music could be again.
Leave it to Baz Luhrmann to offer a show that is a perfect fusion of past and future and make it so appealing to both the eyes and the ears. The show itself documents the emergence of a new art form, what we now know to be hip-hop, in the late ’70s, when New York City was struggling under crime and economic woes, and disco was dying out. However, that doesn’t stop the show from tipping its musical hat to Donna Summer with the inclusion of “Bad Girls.”
The drama is both driven and infused by its music, telling the story of a group of artists, dancers and musicians in South Bronx. The show is interspersed with real news clips from the time period, lending to the gritty authenticity of it.
The show offers a deep respect for the musical innovations it’s cataloguing, bringing aboard Nas, Grandmaster Flash and Kurtis Blow as producers. The soundtrack features offerings from one of its stars Jaden Smith, but it also digs deep to offer fresh, avant-garde music that feels, somehow, very, very modern and anachronistic. It’s really quite amazing. It spans the genre with offerings from 6LACK to Miguel to Christina Aguilera. Even the title song lays it down.