Currently playing on Netflix is the hip hop film Beats, starring Anthony Anderson, Uzo Aduba, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Khalil Everage, Dreezy, and Dave East.
The film was directed by Chris Robinson from a scriptwritten by Miles Feldsot and produced by Bob Teitel and Glendon Palmer.
In this coming-of-age drama, a reclusive teenage musical prodigy (Khalil Everage) forms an unlikely friendship with a down-on-his-luck high school security guard (Anthony Anderson). United by their mutual love of hip hop, they try to free each other from the demons of their past and break into the city’s music scene. Directed by Chris Robinson (ATL, “The New Edition Story”), BEATS features Everage in his feature film debut and co-stars Uzo Aduba and Emayatzy Corinealdi. BEATS is the ultimate ode to Chicago’s South Side, and its long history of creating music that forms the city’s beating heart.
During their visit at the 2019 American Black Film Festival, Blackfilm.com spoke with Robinson and Anderson regarding their involvement with the film.
Can you talk about how this film came about?
Chris Robinson: The genesis of the story is, from Bob Teitel, our producer, who is a native of Chicago, and a script written by Miles Feedlot, and Anthony Anderson producing. So that’s, that’s how it started. And when I read the script, it just really, grabbed me in a certain way, because it spoke about mental health, and, our community. And in my life, you know, I’ve been through that with my child, and it just resonated with me. And the more that we got into the script, and change things and had conversations about it, it just really turned into something that I feel like is important, but also like a really good movie, a film that, will touch your heart, it’ll make you laugh, and it’s music involved. So, that always is a drive.
And for yourself Anthony, coming on board as an actor and producer?
Anthony Anderson: The script. The script spoke to me. Everything that goes on within our community, and what these young kids are going through, not only in the south side of Chicago, but in any inner city around this country, and just how it should speak to them. Then the cast that we’ve assembled in working with Chris and working with Bob Teitel, and our partnership with Netflix, just seemed like those were the components for success. Hopefully, that’s what happens on June 19, when this film was released.
I looked at the film, and I looked at your character, and wondered if it’s the same character from Hustle and Flow 20 years later. It could be but how would you best describe your character?
Anthony Anderson: A man that, down on his luck, and he had a fall from grace from the music industry, and he finds himself back, and the community in which he came from where he said, he would never be again. And there is, in the head of the lion’s mouth, eating humble pie, and forced to deal with his reality and in dealing with his reality, comes across a young musical prodigy that he kind of exploits and takes advantage of to get his life back. But also in the exploitation and taking advantage of this young man, also having the ability to give August a new life, but at what expense? How exploitive is he going to be with this young, unassuming
music producer?
Chris, here’s a movie where it speaks to a lot of people’s hearts, because you’re dealing with a lot, as you mentioned, mental issues, and you’re weaving other storylines in there. For you as a director, in working along with the screenwriter, how was that for you? Was it a challenge to have to so many elements in the script and still make the story cohesive?
Chris Robinson: I think for this, sometimes you create a mood, or feeling in the city is a character, and what my goal was, was not to exploit it, not to exploit what you see, or we feel like those stories are like, we all kind of watch CNN, and we go, Oh, we know what Chicago is about. But Chicago is all about, it’s an amazing city with a great heart, and there’s some problems in Chicago. And, you know, we can talk about that originating from a political standpoint of moving people around gentrification, redlining, that lead to schools being closed, and what the gang culture is in Chicago.
But ultimately, those are our children and our future, walking the school every day, through different neighborhoods. It’s tough. We wanted to tell that story in a way that we saw how it affects the mom, and we see how it affects the kids. And it’s not all this dreary, ugly situation, there’s a lot of love, and family in it’s funny, in in the middle of that at any moment. Things can change in your life, because of the violence.
Anthony, can you talk about working with Emayatzy and with newcomer Khalil Everage?
Anthony Anderson: You know, it’s it’s, I always see this is my responsibility to share the knowledge that I have, especially with a newcomer in Khalil. Just to share the share what I have so a young actor can avoid certain pitfalls, but then, you know, they also have to learn on their own, make their own mistakes. And then working with someone like Emayatzy and Uzo, and just knowing and respecting and appreciating network and being able to, volley with them, you know, back and forth, no matter how fast they’re serve, maybe you always just want to return it and get it back over the net. That’s the fun part for me, to be able to just go toe to toe with with some of the best in the business. That’s where the magic happens. That’s where you’re creating things that you really couldn’t think of it just happens. And and
that’s what it is for me.
More recently you appeared in the live showing of The Jeffersons, which was a spinoff of Archie Bunker’s place. Did you know that black-ish would go on to create grownish? And then another series mixed-ish? How much fun is it that the blackish is the genesis of these series?
Anthony Anderson: Those were always thoughts and plans that we had. Yeah, it’s what we wanted, we didn’t know if it would happen, we didn’t know how our show was going to be received. But it’s resonated with an audience worldwide. And because of that, we’re able to have grownish, we’re able to have mixed-ish, and then hopefully, it’s the gift that keeps on giving, and there’ll be more spinoffs. It’s a testament to the authenticity, the way in which we tell these stories. We don’t try to pander to any one group, but we’re very specific in what we do. In being that specific, were able to have our show received by a wide audience.
That was something that Kanya Barris and I sat down and talked about. We looked at the landscape of television, and what was missing from, from that for us as viewers and as, as creators. We took the page from Cosby we took a page from Norman Lear, and all of that, and, and here we are six years later, still going strong, and hopefully, we can go for another six, God willing, if that’s what we choose to do. But yeah, it was also it was always our plan. And it was it was a vision of ours to have our show spawn and spin off the way that it has.
What’s next?
Chris Robinson: Beats comes out June 19. Then after Beats, did the pilot for the Wu Tang Hulu series with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard and RZA.
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