Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
“Belly,” the 1998 crime drama starring DMX, Nas, T-Boz, Taral Hicks, Tyrin Turner and Method Man (among others), co-written and directed by Hype Williams is one of my favorite movies. Williams, of course, is a legend in the music video directing game, having helmed landmark videos for the likes of Jay-Z, Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, Janet Jackson, Wu-Tang Clan, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Nas and on and on. If you were a hot artist in the late ’90s and ’00s, there’s a pretty good chance you made at least a phone call to see if Williams was available. To say that he is essential to the evolution and growth of hip-hop would be the understatement of the century; hip-hop continues to move into places never before thought possible because of how Williams made hip-hop look to the world.
So you can imagine the joy so many of us who love movies as much as we love movies experienced when “Belly” dropped on November 4, 1998. I was a sophomore at Morehouse College in Atlanta, and while I cannot definitively say I saw it in theaters, I am a person who went to see “Bring It On” in theaters. So I can’t imagine a world where I wouldn’t have seen “Belly” at AMC Phipps Plaza 14, with the homies. I mean, look, it starred Nas and DMX – two of everybody’s favorite rappers of the moment – was directed by Hype Williams, and really nobody had any idea what to expect. In 1998, that is the recipe for a must-see-experience.
Is “Belly” a good movie? Eh. That’s a hard question to answer…and for one simple reason: I don’t even know if “Belly” is a movie, so much as the greatest hip-hop…
Read the full article here
