Quick-mix theory
‘AT ITS BEST THE GET DOWN FEELS LIKE A RAUCOUS PARTY; AT ITS WORST IT FEELS LIKE LYING IN BED THINKING ABOUT THE STUFF YOU HAVE TO CLEAN UP’
There is a scene in The Get Down’s first episode that hints at just how big of a world it’s wading into. Looking over the late- 1970s Bronx — a cityscape that looks, in both the show’s simulation and spliced- in historical footage, like it has been bombed out — nearmythic would- be DJ Shaolin Fantastic ( Shameik Moore) explains the lay of the land to his teenage crew. Over there is the land of Kool Herc, there the territory of Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation, over here the domain of Grandmaster Flash, home of the party that gives the series its name and the group of boys their inspiration.
This wide-angle view is, for the most part, left to fleeting moments in The Get Down. We instead narrow our focus on to this fivesome — at first calling themselves The Fantastic Four Plus One, which hints at how messy their entry i nto the burgeoning hip- hop scene is — and even, at that, to two members in particular. The aforementioned Shaolin is the epitome of striving hustle, willing to do anything — act as a booty boy for a lizardy drug queen or loot a club for its DJ gear — to fulfil his dream of becoming another Grandmaster on the decks. The more reserved Ezekiel ( Justice Smith), soon to be rechristened Books, is a quieter dreamer who needs to find the confidence to let his intelligence carry him away from a world of burned- out buildings and piecemeal work, where only the most brash, and corrupt, seem to find any success.
If Shaolin is our guide, Books is our hero: the main action of The Get Down is framed by his story, told in rap, bookending most episodes. ( The rap is delivered by Nas, one of a few notable executive producers with impeccable hip- hop chops, though the mildly awkward flow of it tends to serve as a reminder that Nas is not what he used to be.) Through Books we get not just a wide-eyed look at the mixture of disco, diminished expectation, crime and creativity that helped form hip- hop, we also get our bog- standard portrait of the artist as a young man, from finding his voice to the girl that he’s trying most to impress with it.
That’s Mylene ( Herizen F. Guardiola), an aspiring disco singer held back by her religious father’s conservative mores. The relationship between Books and Mylene is the surest signpost not just that we’re in a Baz Luhrmann production — he seems to best understand the world through love that is somewhere between puppydog and carnivorously lupine — but that The Get Down is retro in more than just its setting. Nearly as strongly as Stranger Things’ self-conscious ‘80s sci-fi-isms, The Get Down is a ‘ 70s story, about a young man with limited prospects tryin’ ta be somethin’ with the help of his inner spark and the love of a good woman.
This relative narrowness is Get Down’s blessing and curse, the source of its most enthralling moments and its overbearing construction. It is, as far as pieces of art throwing us into the birth of a movement go, absurdly good at capturing the thrill and noise and chaos of discovery and creation. The opening episode’s tour through a bumping ‘ 70s club — the same one, Les Inferno, whose looting helps kick- start their hip hop — smells of cocaine and big dreams, the camera whirling around like it’s high on both. Even learning, here, is downright ecstatic: the first scenes of Shaolin figuring out how to find a break, fingers flying between the decks as endless circles of vinyl zip back and forth, is far more exhilarating than practice has any right to be.
These scenes trade space with more prosaic concerns, though, and here’s where The Get Down bogs down. If the setting isn’t necessarily overly familiar, the way it plods through it is. The way the story plays out isn’t just short on surprise, it’s short on the vitality that infuses the moments when these boys and girls first start to figure out what they want their adulthood to look like. Mewling professions of love, familial bickering, shady city-building — a suitably chewy Jimmy Smits features as a part-hopeful and part-sleazeball developer looking to reshape his neighbourhood — they all lag, taking us through things we’ve seen before, often without the heavy hand that attends so much of Luhrmann’s work.
At its best The Get Down feels exactly like a whirling, raucous party; at its worst it feels like lying in bed thinking about all the stuff you have to clean up.
I can’t help but feel like a wider angle with a shallower focus might have solved some of this: say, diving more into the competing parties and styles, seeing how they respond to the city as it is. That might at least make the slower character scenes feel less like explainers, and it would certainly play to the show’s strengths: throwing you into the maelstrom and showing you how to dance.
Not that we should go about wishing for what might have been. What’s here, in The Get Down, is as exciting as it is frustrating — you’ll have to decide if the balance is enough for you to keep walking its streets.
THROWING YOU INTO THE MAELSTROM AND SHOWING YOU HOW TO DANCE.