Hip-Hop, Hustle, and What it Means to Hear History in VH1’s “The Breaks”

Hip-Hop, Hustle, and What it Means to Hear History in VH1’s “The Breaks” by Sasha Panaram | @SashaPanaram | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
For hip-hop fans and popular culture junkies alike, January 4, 2016 marked the much-awaited debut of VH1’s original television movie, The Breaks. Ever since VH1 green-lighted the film in early 2015, people have been buzzing nonstop in anticipation of its release. Fittingly, I first heard about the movie several months ago riding an uptown number 6 train to the Bronx when a group of young hip-hop heads planned a viewing party for the big day. I should note that these New Yorkers didn’t just intend to watch The Breaks. From what I overheard, they were poised to see as many hip-hop related movies and shows they could fit into one night – everything ranging from Empire to Straight Outta Compton to Juice to Krush Groove.
As the youth rattled off shows – some of which were new to me – their sheer enthusiasm reminded me that so much of hip-hop’s history is preserved, reimagined, and restored by the faithful work of screenwriters, television producers, and movie directors; storytellers unwilling to deny hip-hop’s existence and enduring future. In this respect, The Breaks proved no different as it honored the grit and gritty realities that surfaced in the lives of those committed to making, distributing, and supporting hip-hop music and culture.
Set in New York City during the 1990s, The Breaks follows the interweaving stories of three characters determined to place hip-hop at the center of their lives. Nikki Jones, as portrayed by Afton Williamson, is a confident, clever, won’t take no for an answer George Washington University college graduate who allegedly turns down Harvard Law School to seek out a job working for hip-hop manager, Barry Fouray (Wood Harris also known as Avon Barksdale in The Wire and Julius Campbell in Remember the Titans).
While this hip-hop aficionada does not rap or write lyrics, she fast-talks her way into a position at Fouray Management where she proves that she’s capable of doing more than cleaning toilets. Aspiring to effect “change from the bottom” as her boyfriend’s father and corrupt record-promoter, Jonah “Juggy” Aaron (Evan Handler) puts it, Nikki keeps her ear to the ground intent on keeping abreast with circulating music and discovering artists who might just have what it takes to make it. Her devotion to hip-hop, sharp ear, and insistence that music will stand squarely at the core of her life suggests that fans can and do influence musical production if they take their roles as consumers seriously.
DeeVee, played by Mack Wilds who also appeared in The Wire as Michael Lee, greatly benefits from Nikki’s newfound job when she slips a copy of a track he produces with gang leader and master street-rapper, Ahm (Antoine Harris), to Fouray. After years of producing hip-hop out of a garage, much to the dismay of his father, Darryl Van Puten, Sr. played by Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man, DeeVee appears to have made a musical breakthrough or so we are left believing as the movie culminates.
Nikki’s boyfriend, David Aaron (David Call), the son of Juggy, shares a similar drive to that of DeeVee given that he wants to aid with the circulation, presentation, and reception of hip-hop music. To this end, he attempts to use his influence as an intern at an R&B radio station to convince the hosts to play hip-hop music, but they repeatedly deny his requests reminiscent of the days when black radio stations hesitated to play hip-hop.
As Nikki, DeeVee, and David commit themselves to music their various setbacks and rejections only begin to unearth the difficulties hip-hop artists experienced in the early 1990s when faced with the task of convincing a body of apprehensive listeners that theirs was a socially conscious music worthy of respect.
The two-hour pilot raises a few questions in the midst of introducing viewers to a budding musical genre: What role did women play in the early stages of hip-hop? How does the hip-hop scene in New York compare to that of the West coast particularly the music coming out of L.A. at the same time? Where did aspiring musicians go to promote their music as NYC clubs closed? To what extent did issues of monetary and drug corruption hinder musical development? If The Breaks does turn into a television series, then the answers to some of these questions might surface in future episodes.  
The Breaks takes its inspiration, in part, from Dan Charnas’ book, The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip Hop (2010). Charnas – journalist, record producer, screenwriter – was among one of the earliest people to help create and contribute to hip-hop journalism. The Big Payback, a tome of more than 600-pages long, catalogues the pressures, risks, failures, clashes, and victories that emerged as hip-hop artists and producers struggled to successfully introduce hip-hop into mainstream culture in New York.
Charnas, in collaboration with Seith Mann, the director and screenwriter of The Breaks, use every tool imaginable to recreate New York City during the 1990s. If the movie’s plot doesn’t intrigue you, then certainly the carefully curated soundtrack will.
Ever faithful to hip-hop’s early beginnings, riddled throughout the movie you’ll hear the tunes of Public Enemy, MC Hammer, N.W.A., and De La Soul, among others. D.J. Premier, responsible for the movie’s score, paid homage to the 1990s hip-hop scene. Even the new music written by Phonte from Foreign Exchange, who makes an appearance in the film as Imam Ali, a pro-Black battle rapper, sounds as if it originated in the early 90s. For those interested in reliving the music from The Breaks check out the VH1 organized soundtrack available on Spotify.
As Mark Anthony Neal and 9th Wonder explain 2016 marks twenty years since the release of Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt and The Fugees’ The Score. One can almost hear the writers of The Breaks gesturing to Jay-Z’s formative album when Nikki declares that it is her “unreasonability” that makes her a viable asset to Fouray Management. As The Breaks  return us to the 1990s and invites us to listen again to the sounds that started an era, there is a sense that this film is also teaching us how to listen for the first time; to listen to a genre that is not on the brink of fading out, but one that has forayed successfully into America’s musical consciousness and is here to stay.
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Sasha Panaram is Ph.D. student in English at Duke University.  A Georgetown University alumna, her scholarly interests are in black diasporic literature, black feminisms, and visual cultures.