The Get Down isn't the only hip hop influenced show on Netflix's line-up -- this month, Luke Cage, Marvel's street level African-American superhero, will be getting his own thirteen episode series on the steaming service. The character is beloved by many rap artists, and in turn, the new live-action adaptation is heavily influenced by hip hop music.
"All the episodes are named after Gang Starr songs," said Cheo Hodari Coker, the showrunner for Luke Cage, in a new promotional video for the upcoming Netflix series. Coker went on to say that the fast pace of the show is inspired by the speed of hip hop, which Coker says moves "at the speed of thought." Before Luke Cage, Coker wrote for the TNT series Southland, and co-wrote the 2009 Notorious B.I.G. biopic, Notorious.
"It was really about that hip hop foundation," said Ali Shaheed Muhammad from A Tribe Called Quest, who is also the music supervisor for the new show. "We have music [in the show] that's inspired by A Tribe Called Quest, inspired by Wu... It's not just for black people and minorities... It's just something great that happens to be based on our culture."
Netflix screened the show for several hip hop artists, including Method Man and A$AP Ferg, who were impressed with the show. "You can’t buy that right there; that’s dope," Method Man said after watching a brutal action scene scored to Wu Tang Clan's "Bring Da Ruckus."
"Brothers like me have been waiting for this since I was eight years old," Method Man said, expressing his excitement to finally see Luke Cage make the jump from comic books to TV. "Now it's here and I'm ecstatic."
By Michael Lacerna for RAPstation.com
