To commemorate the 50th anniversary of hip hop, The Criterion Channel will be airing legendary Hip Hop movies including Belly and Wildstyle.
The streaming service will, according to Pitchfork, highlight movies “showcasing raw early documents of the scene’s key players, intimate and informative portraits of musical expertise and technical wizardry, and definitive, star-studded evocations of the culture’s impact.”
Ashley Clark, the director for Criterion, expressed her excitement about the wide-ranging series in a statement. “We’re extremely excited to present this wide-ranging series that highlights the incredibly varied ways that Hip Hop has shown up in film since the culture’s birth 50 years ago,” she said.
“Whether you’re an expert or a beginner, there’s something for everyone here, from raw, pivotal early documents like Wild Style and Style Wars onward.”
Classic Hip Hop movies including Wild Style, Beat Street, KrushGroove, Paid in Full, and Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, to name a few, will be broadcast beginning on August 1.
Do the Right Thing, Boyz n the Hood, and Poetic Justice are just a few of the movies that will begin to be screened on September 1. The site will start offering movies on November 1 including Belly and Belly 2: Millionaire Boyz Club, the former of which stars DMX as Tommy “Buns” Bundy and Nas as Sincere.
Belly is one of many Hip Hop movies that have in-depth backstories. Actor Tyrin Turner acknowledged in April that after his part was assigned to X, he attempted to “sabotage” the Hype Williams-directed film.
Turner revealed his rage and disappointment on the Dub C & CJ Mac Show after being promised the starring role of Tommy “Buns” Bundy in the 1998 classic movie, only for Williams to change his mind and give it to DMX.
Turner was instead given the role of Big Head Rico and made an effort to detract from the movie by giving a purposefully ridiculous performance. Ironically, his strategy failed because it had the exact opposite result.
He added, “I met Hype Williams, I did the ‘Mary Jane’ video for Scarface, and then Hype was like, ‘I got this movie called Belly, I want you to be DMX’s character,'” However, DMX wasn’t yet famous when he said, “That’s what he wanted.”
“A couple of months later, [Hype] was like, ‘We got this dude named DMX, he the next one from New York — it was a New York movie.’ He declared that he would move in that direction. Although it was cool, at first I found it annoying. Damn, you said you wanted me, I thought.
