On The Come Up: The Hip Hop Industry Explored The Eyes Of An Adolescent – TIFF Review
deadline.comOn The Come Up, directed by actress turned director Sanaa Lathan and written by Zora Howard (Premature) and Kay Oyegun is based on the book by acclaimed author Angie Thomas (The Hate You Give).
The film explores the many facets of Black girlhood through hip-hop music and the general music industry. On The Come Up book is 464 pages, and the movie tries to cram all that information in two hours which sometimes overshadows the messaging, but what works is that it speaks to a demographic that is often ignored and the culture of rap that is seldom explored from a woman’s perspective.The film starts with Bri being abandoned by her drug addicted mother Jay (Lathan).
The memory traumatizes her throughout her adolescence until the point she’s introduced as a 16-year old. She’s also mourning the death of her father, a former rapper called Law from the Garden Heights.
She wants to be just like her father and frequents The Ring, a place she calls the “Hunger Games of rap,”where lyricists battle for cash prizes.
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