Beat Street - Impact

Impact

• Loose Cannons a Dallas based Hip Hop duo composed of MC's Boo Naap and Cin Q sample the "It's working" scene for their early Hip Hop era tribute song to break dancing.
• The film is mentioned in episode 12 of The Boondocks while Robert "Granddad" Freeman discusses Riley's graffiti masterpiece.
• Legendary Rapper AZ mentions the film in his song "The Come Up", in the line "Before Beat Street, streets was heavily in deep with the ryders."
• The Notorious B.I.G in his song "Suicidal Thoughts" said, "Should I die on the train tracks like Ramo in Beat Street/People at my funeral frontin' like they miss me."
• Jay Electronica mentions the film in his song "Exhibit A (Transformations)" in the line "Who gone bring the game back/who gone spit that Ramo on the train tracks".
• Rapper Ras Kass in his song "Won't Catch Me Runnin'" said, "When my voice hits the mike, I electrocute Spit like Beat Street."
• Mr. Lif, on "Elektro", rapped the lines: "So I use the same flow to put niggas under in The Serpent and the Rainbow/Go back to Beat Street and resurrect Ramo knock the shit out of Spit verbal eclipse"
• Lines from the film were mentioned in Lost Prophets song "Five is a Four-Letter Word."
• 1200 Techniques sampled lines from the film in the song "Battlemaster."
• 50 Cent from G-unit references Spit and Ramo in "Hustlers Ambition."
• Portions of the Beat Street Breakdown scene can be downloaded from the video-sharing sites YouTube and MySpace.

Beat Street's impact was felt internationally as well as throughout the United States. In Germany, for example, movies such as Beat Street and Wild Style are credited with introducing the hip hop movement to the country. Because movies are so easily distributed over borders, part of the importance of this movie lay in its ability to influence both East and West Germany, which at the time were still divided. Beat Street was of particular importance in the East, where it is said to illustrate for young people the evils of capitalism. Because the film focused so heavily on the visual aspects of hip hop, such as breaking and graffiti, these aspects had the heaviest influence on the emerging German hip hop scene. I

t was precisely these visual aspects that helped bring hip hop culture to Germany, rather than simply a genre of music. Beat Street appeared in the German Democratic Republic at almost the same time as in the West. Dresden, the center of the Beat Street scene was geographically out of western media range, making it a perfect center to explore this genre of music. The hip hop scene for the entire public would meet at breakdancing competitions, emceeing competitions, and graffiti spraying. Puerto Rican and African American breakdancing, hip hop and Latin freestyle dance sounds, and inner-city American graffiti made up what Germans knew as hip hop culture. The aftermath of Beat Street propelled events such as competitions in emceeing, break dancing, and graffiti spraying throughout Germany.