What
follows is the best and most comprehensive Beat Street movie scene
tribute and links all in one spot on youtube...without further ado,
here they are:
Beat Street couldn't have ended better than it did with a celebration featuring some of the most significant of the Hip Hop Scene to include Grandmaster Melle Mel and the Furious Five, the New York City Breakers, Rock Steady Crew and many others.
Melle Mel made this rap bad-ass though! There was no better choice than Grandmaster Melle Mel for this grand finale. He turned it out and gave a strong message (just when you thought "The Message" couldn't have been topped!)
Catch the subway and the scenery of the slums of the South Bronx at the start of the video below, and how many had to live in poverty in conditions that nobody should have to live like! And there are some who even live worse which Melle Mel talks about later.
Beat Street Breakdown was straight up one of the best all-time raps ever made. The scratchin was off the chain, and the beat was serious and vocal. Had a lot of meaning and heart.
Most modern day Raps are not a "message" any longer, trying to open others eyes - but instead - they just seem want to make everyone get vain and materialistic and sell out what they know is right, in order to supposedly have it all.
This rap said so much and spoke to the illest of ills in one rap. You don't ever see that happen anymore, a hundred modern day Raps don't seem to talk anything near what this ONE rap talked to!
Here are some of my favorite lyrics:
"...Beat Street is a lesson too because uh...ya can't let the streets beat you -ugh"
"..I know you'd paint a better place to live"
"I never knew art until I saw your face and there'll never be one to take your place, cause each and every time you touched the spray paint can, Michaelangelo's soul controls your hands"
"why'd you have to die so soon"
"whose gonna dream the impossible dreams, of the beautiful cities and the island streams, when your works of art dropped in to being all that the ghetto stopped you from seein"
"screamin out and say Ramo!"
"all you Hip Hops get on up and let's take it to the place where we belong!"
"say hooooo"
"the rise and fall of the last great empire, the sound of the whole world caught on fire...the ruthless struggle, the desperate gamble, the game that left the whole world in shambles"
"the cheats, the lies, the alibis, and the foolish attempts to conquer the skies...spending multibillions and maybe even trillions..."
"...and the children in Africa don't even eat...flies on their faces, they're livin like mice and their house even makes the ghetto look nice...their water tastes funny its forever too sunny and they work all month and don't make no money"
"minds are poisoned...souls are polluted...superiority complex is deep rooted"
"egomaniacs control the self righteous...nothing is sacred and nothing is pure, until the revelation of death is our cure.."
"to learn from the past and work for the future and don't be a slave to no computer...cause the children of man inherits the land and the future of the world is in you hands!"
"so just throw your hands in the air and wave em like you just don't care, and if you believe that you're the future scream on out and say Oh Yeah!"
Enjoy ya'all and take a stroll back on memory lane wit this one - Melle Mel and Beat Street Breakdown Ruh!
If you were a Breaker like I was, Beat Street was the freshest (at the time). It's funny but now when I watch it, I see the acting could have been a little better.
Also, there is a view that Ramo wanted to just do Graffiti and not work. I don't think that's how you look at it though. Instead, he was an artist who wanted to escape the "trash and the slime of a world like this"!
Ramo wanted to do this with his talent but doing burners was the only way he knew how. He meant well, but also didn't have the resources as an inner-city kid who wanted to change his otherwise fate of working in a mechanic shop when that wasn't where his heart or talent was.
Here is the scene before Ramo left the world, to go chasing after one of his many demons trying to ruin his dream to "paint a better place to live". Screamin out and say "Ramo!"
Style Wars was another Hip Hop Culture Classic. It was a Documentary mainly about 'style wars" or graffiti battles and fame between and among artists in the South Bronx, Brooklyn and other New York City boroughs.
Featured were artists like Seen, Zephyr and Crash and the documentary shows how subway graffiti transformed between Phase 1 to Phase 2 and beyond (the old school names for 1.0. 2.0, etc!) I remember seeing some of Crash's work back in the early 1980's actually.
Also featured in Style Wars documentary were Bboy battles between the Dynamic Rockers and The Rock Steady Crew featuring Up-rocking and breakin, poppin and down-rockin of Hip Hop dance artists like Frosty Freeze and of course Crazy Legs and many others. And who can forget the song "Rockin It" by the Treacherous Three with Kool Moe Dee. A classic!
Graffiti artists would go "All City" where they'd spread their name and art accross town all over the place. Taggin was more a signature while Burners and Murals were their main art pieces. It was their way of expression and making an ugly 1970's and 80's South Bronx more beautiful and full of color. When the authorities cracked down and washed all trains, they made them even uglier even calledf 'vomit" colored by the Mayor, where even he seemed to concede they looked better with the Graffiti.
Artists wanted to make their world nicer, rather than looking like an otherwise slumlord-neglected "trash and the slime of a world like this" ghetto, as stated by Melle Mel in the Rap New York New York or later in Beat Street Breakdown where he said "I know you'd paint a better place to live" talking about how life looked in the ghetto, both visually and representatively versus how Graffiti tried to paint such a better place.
Remember when KK in Beat Street said, "this ain't New York City, this is the Bronx" which captured how otherwise crazy it was, where you'd have the slums like the South Bronx with a backdrop to rich places like what was seen in the distant skyline - Upper Manhattan and Wall Street and all their money "lookin down on the poor and the needy" while the poor were wonderin: "I'm livin in the land of plenty and many, but I'm damn sure poor and I don't know why."
To the artists, this fell into the category of once again Hip Hop culture making "somethin out of nothing." It was also called a crime by the authorities, very controversial even to this day. Like one person in the documentary said that she "didn't know it had such a deep meaning." to the artists.
Yet also on the other hand again, artists like Irene Cara (surprisingly) were in commercials speaking out against Graffiti. The art form itself was nonetheless, to many others, like what the infamous Zeb Roc Ski said in his song All City (below the documentary) where he said..."they were artists" also echoing the words of one artist in Style Wars "but I made your eyes open."
