11/27/2023 0 Comments World star hip hop freaks reviewSure’s biological son, Puffy’s adopted son, and Quincy Jones’s godson.Īt one level, this is simply stardom: you know these folks from somewhere else. The rich-kid, would-be producer of Malcolm’s band is Quincy Combs - Al B. The women Malcolm falls for are not just Hollywood-beautiful they are actual models (Kravitz and Chanel Iman). The underwritten (or maybe just generic) characters onscreen depend for their liveliness on these connections, and Dope is full of them. Rocky can be effortlessly knowledgeable Malcolm can offer a tensed-up, proto-intellectual defense of “the long ’90s,” and as a result, the two of them form an oddly mature love triangle around Nakia, played by Rocky’s real ex-girlfriend Zoë Kravitz. This may be the smartest moment in the movie: it gives us a channel to connect the requisite dealer-on-the-corner character with A$AP Rocky, the rapper portraying him. But you know the spirit of the music was definitely still ’90s. What the fuck are you talking about right now? Guess me and my friends just wish we grew up back then.ĭom: It Takes a Nation came out in ’88. Everything from It Takes a Nation of Millions to The Blueprint was killin’ it. Malcolm: You know, the ’90s was like the golden age of hip-hop. The trio proclaim themselves to be ’90s hip-hop geeks, and for a certain generation of reviewers, that is the expressway to easy praise: “How great it is to finally see kids like this get their own story,” by which they mean “my story.”īut in the one sustained discussion of what being a ’90s hip-hop geek might actually mean, Malcolm, our hero, gets shown up by the local drug dealer:ĭom: I be seeing you and your lil friends with y’all flat tops and MC Hammer pants, ridin’ around and shit, lookin’ like y’all came outta a DeLorean or some shit. Doubtless it has already been through several cycles of backlash and anti-backlash among the teens it depicts and they will settle for themselves just how useful a totem Dope will be as they find and make their culture going forward.Īt the same time, the movie is part of our current ’90s vogue - the return of the fade, the deluge of “only ’90s kids will remember” Buzzfeed listicles, and hashtags full of throwback references. This movie was principally touted as a certification of the worth of young black nerds onscreen and off, and whether it works is up to them. If I didn’t find the hilarity enough to outweigh the flaws, that’s largely irrelevant. The film is chock full of coincidences, band camp flashbacks, discussions with white folks about saying “nigga,” some corporate espionage, and a successful admission to Harvard. Despite their best efforts to stay clean, they end up needing to unload several kilos of molly, and the ensuing hijinks are alternately ludicrous and predictable. They have built up a culture of defense by being interested in what the movie calls “white shit”: being particularly good at school (which we don’t see them do) and playing punk music in a band called Awreeoh (which we do). The three kids at the heart of the story - Malcolm, Diggy, and Jib - live in “The Bottoms” in Inglewood. Click here to get your subscription today.ĭ OPE, at the end of its domestic theatrical run, looks poised to become an icon of black nerd culture. The following is a feature article from the summer issue of the Los Angeles Review of Books: Magazine.
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