Earlier this week, during our conversation surrounding KYLE's film debut, The After Party (which hit Netflix on Friday, August 24 and was produced by Live Nation Productions), we got into a spirited discussion on hip-hop films. Part of that was due to KYLE's own thoughts on how important a film like The After Party can be for today's rap fan. KYLE shared that, as a young rap fan himself, he grew up watching a number of hip-hop films.
"I remember watching Beat Street and stuff like that and being all into it," he said, before breaking down a trend that happened to hip-hop films in Hollywood: their diminishing presence. "It’s funny. It’s almost like hip-hop had that, and, randomly, we kind of lost it. After 2010 or something, it kind of, like, stopped happening. Hip-hop had that, and I loved that. It made me feel like my culture was larger than life growing up because nothing is more larger than life than a movie. We should be celebrating our hip-hop culture in film because it’s the biggest genre in the world. It has so much history; we’re just not taking enough time to explain it."
With that in mind, KYLE shared five of his favorite hip-hop films—highlighting titles from a genre that goes well beyond rappers portraying fictionalized versions of themselves.
'House Party' (1990)
'8 Mile' (2002)
'Bones' (2001)
'Get Rich or Die Tryin'' (2005)
'Krush Groove' (1985)
Bonus Films
While I initially asked Kyle for his top five hip-hop films, our conversation veered off into some interesting lanes, especially when you think about what makes a movie a "hip-hop film."
"I'm putting The Wash in there, too," KYLE said. "Even though it has nothing to do with rapping, it involves rappers, so I'm putting The Wash in there." That might be a cheat code on the low, but the 2001 comedy does star Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, with a crazy cameo from Eminem.
The conversation is a slippery slope, though.
KYLE also admitted that he "was about to start dropping all Ice-T movies, but I can't do that. If I'mma do that, then I have to drop all Will Smith movies. I remember being in high school and not a single one of my friends knew Will Smith was a rapper, and how would they? He's such a huge movie star. "
After our interview was over and KYLE was on his way out, the conversation kept going, because the lines of what a hip-hop film is can differ for some viewers. After I mentioned my love of films like Juice, which was definitely a slice of the darker side of the New York hip-hop scene in the early '90s, KYLE made sure that Spike Lee's classic 1989 film Do the Right Thing be included, which makes sense. From the part Jordans played in it to Radio Raheem blasting "Fight the Power" through a huge boombox, that film is hip-hop to the core.
KYLE's The After Party is now available for streaming on Netflix. KYLE also released a new song from the film, "Moment," which features Wiz Khalifa. Check that out below.