Every year comes with it a number of hip hop films which document, satirize or dramatize the culture, or all of the above or in many cases just contain subject matter that appeals to hip hop fans in general. The most prolific title in recent years is the 2015 NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton which was a massive critical and commercial success. Other titles include the Ice T documentary Something From Nothing:The Art of Rap as well as titles from the early to mid 2000s such as 8 Mile, Notorious and Hustle & Flow.
The year 2016 was relatively dry in as far as any solid hip hop film being released, but it seems 2017 might make up for that drought. The first film which many are anxious to watch, including me, is the dramatized Tupac Shakur biopic titled All Eyez On Me which is scheduled for theatrical release on Friday, 16th June 2017. The second film is the Roxanne Shante biopic titled Roxanne Roxanne. Anyone who knows a little bit of hip hop history will recall that Roxanne Shante played a pivotal role in the start of the Roxanne Wars in the eighties which was a series of song responses that followed after Shante released the highly successful rap song Roxanne’s Revenge. Different sources claim different figures but it’s believed that anywhere from 30 to 100 response records were released all of which were triggered by Shante’s track.
The biopic will follow the life of Roxanne and will probably show her rise to prominence, the Roxanne Wars and the life that followed after; she went on to get a bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D after the commotion died down FYI. The film was shown at the Sundance Film Festival just last night, 22nd January 2017. Once a film hits the festival circuit theatrical release is often close at hand.
Roxanne was an executive producer of the film and was involved on set in instructing and guiding the newcomer actress who plays her, Chanté Adams. “It was a moment, I'd be like, 'OK, if you're gonna be boosting and you're going to steal, don't keep looking down in the bag because you'll get caught, so you gotta keep you head up, do it this way, just fold the clothes and drop 'em in the bag.' So I gave her, like, boosting tips. Not know anything about that now – but back then I did!” That is one of the tips Roxanne gave to Adams as per an interview with Rolling Stone.
In my opinion Roxanne Roxanne will most likely be the more interesting of the two big hip hop films scheduled for release this year. A lot is already known about Tupac Shakur so we may not really learn or see anything particularly new in that film, where as relatively little is known about Roxanne Shante and that makes for some riveting material if the project is put together well.
