Review of Style Wars (1984) by Thomas J — 29 Jun 2012

I thought that this documentary provided a unique in depth look into the beginning of the hip-hop culture in and around the 1980's. Explaining the beginnings of three key elements in hip-hop culture, Break dancing, rapping, and graffiti; it allows the viewer to see why and how the graffiti artists, rappers, and dancers, do these things the way they do and why.

It analyzes and looks into the hip-hop culture explaining that these three aspects, are the spoken word, physical expression, and artistic expression of hip-hop. However I believe that in this day and age, if it was to really try to explain hip-hop it has become outdated.

It's really great for an introduction and perspective on why Hip-Hop started and happened in the time period it did. However it doesn't really touch on rap that much as that really took off in the early 90's and at this point has evolved into a much different genre then it was shown as in the video.

So in terms of relevance now, when talking about rap it doesn't really cut it. In terms of relevance in accordance with break dancing its similar to rap but a little more relevant because breakdancing was more popular around then.

I think relevancy in accordance with graffiti is pretty good still, because graffiti has died down in our lifetime and isn't the cool new fab it was back then. It also looks at graffiti a little more in depth than the other aspects of hip-hop and fully explores many sides of the cultural struggle that it went through; from the police side, to the taggers, and then to the graffiti bombers.

All in all it is pretty well done and offers a unique perspective on hip-hop in the 1980's.