I'm in my 60's and I live far from any exposure to African-American culture. I always found Rap to be pretty annoying. But I stumbled across this on cable, and I really liked it. It helps that "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" is one of my all-time favorite films, and this had a very similar flavor. One refreshing feature of the film was the authenticity of the language. It always irritates me to see black kids in the ghetto (movie version) speaking something that sounds too close to acting-school English. The cast of this fiom, apparently, did not consist of trained actors who enunciated clearly in a ghetto-esque parody, but people who live and talk in that culture all the time, and it sounded real. At the same time, it was not so steeped in arcane under-culture talk that I could not understand it. So, 5 stars out of 5 for overcoming the language problem that mainstream films are so challenged by. I'd have liked more music---quite a bit of the dialogue was spoken in normal conversation---a lot more could have been put to music, since the commitment had already been made to use that device. I think the pace of the musicalized dialogue was very, very well done in terms of matching body language. Nobody seemed uncomfortable with the exchanges, or impatient for the imposed rhythm to catch up with the reaction. A neat job. Overall, this is a finely-tuned, slick vehicle that works. Whatever you think of African Americans or their music or their culture, this is a nice film that will perhaps endear you to this charming entourage.
Review of Carmen: A Hip Hopera
