The story
The South Bronx, 1977. Orphaned teenage poet Zeke Figuero falls in with Shaolin Fantastic, a graffiti writer with DJ ambitions, and with their friends they chase a dream of making it in music as hip-hop takes shape around them. Mylene, the girl Zeke has always loved, wants to be a disco star, against the wishes of her pastor father. Archive footage and newscasts of a city in crisis are woven through every episode.
Why it matters
Baz Luhrmann's hip-hop origin story was, at the time, Netflix's most expensive series, and its cost far outran its budget. It was also the first Netflix original season to arrive in two halves instead of a single drop – an early experiment with how streaming shows could be rolled out.
Notable facts
- Its first six episodes debuted in August 2016, making it the first Netflix original season split into two parts. (source)
- Grandmaster Flash, Kurtis Blow and Nas ran a hip-hop boot camp to train the young cast. (source)
- Luhrmann spent more than ten years developing the idea before the series was announced in February 2015. (source)
- Its 11 episodes fell two short of the original 13-episode order. (source)