It’s 2002 and I’m 16 years old. It’s a gentle Saturday night in Jackson, Mississippi, and I placed on my too-big 569 Levi jeans, ensuring the waistband is a number of inches below the highest of my boxers. I grab the Ralph Lauren polo shirt my mom got me on sale at Dillard’s, and throw it on. My Jordans are clean, any scuff marks scrubbed away with a toothbrush simply to make certain. I spritz on Curve cologne (from the sample bottle) for added effect. I’m about to take my first date to the flicks.
We’re going to see Brown Sugar.
Written by Michael Elliot and directed by Rick Famuyiwa, I even have fond memories of the film, and never simply because my date went well. The movie tackled a lot in so little time: the commercialization of the hip-hop industry, from labels to journalism; insecurities about relationships with best friends; and a surprisingly nuanced approach to what happens when relationships crumble. The film, which turns 20 on Tuesday, also ages gracefully, because of performances that absolutely sing. Mos Def and Queen Latifah steal the show with their banter. Sanaa Lathan and Taye Diggs’ chemistry is electrical, and so they pull off something that each successful rom-com needs: a singularly good scene. The result’s a movie that broke through as a standout within the Black rom-com canon and is even higher 20 years later.
In the autumn of 2002, Jay-Z, Nelly and Eminem were the world’s biggest rappers with 50 Cent on the horizon. The Los Angeles Lakers, led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, were about to embark on their third straight championship season. And Hollywood was on the tail end of its Black rom-com golden years. Love Jones, the jazzy flick a couple of author who fell in love with a photographer, got here out in 1997. The Best Man, a couple of reunion amongst friends that falls apart, got here out in 1999, the identical 12 months the coming-of-age story The Wood was released. But by 2002, Hollywood seemed less inquisitive about making as many Black rom-coms as in years past.
Brown Sugar, nevertheless sneaked by. The movie was the brainchild of Elliot, a Latest York native who had moved to Los Angeles to interrupt into Hollywood. He cut his teeth as a journalist at The Source (he even produced a now-infamous 1995 awards show) and as a DJ at Hot 97, before turning his attention to the screen. A fan of flicks reminiscent of When Harry Met Sally, he envisioned a romantic comedy featuring Black professionals. Someday, he heard Mary J. Blige’s “Seven Days” and all of it got here together for him.
“She had a line about, ‘After which we made love. After which what am I going to do?’ And that was my inspiration,” Elliot told Andscape. “I went to this coffee shop. I had a bit of paper, and the movie just got here to me, and I just wrote out the structure and the story.”
Elliot’s script would find yourself on an unusually fast track. He wrote the screenplay in a month, and dropped it off at Magic Johnson Entertainment, an organization run by the previous NBA champion, who had a take care of Twentieth Century Fox on the time. Three hours later, he got a call from Charles Murray (True Story, Luke Cage, Sons of Anarchy) — then a low-level creative at Johnson’s company. Murray loved the thought and vowed to get it in front of the fitting people. Seven days after Elliot submitted the script, Twentieth Century Fox purchased the film.
After a number of years of development and delays, the ultimate version of Brown Sugar would take shape. The film centers on two lifelong friends, hip-hop fans, and young professionals who can’t appear to shake the sentiments they’ve for one another, irrespective of how hard they struggle. And like the right verse over a dope beat, the assorted elements of the movie got here together to create something memorable.
The lead characters, Dre and Sidney, were portrayed by Diggs and Lathan. “Those were literally the actors that I had in mind when writing the script,” Elliot recalled.
The pair were a part of a revolving list of actors within the rom-com boom alongside Morris Chestnut, Gabrielle Union, Nia Long, Omar Epps and others. Diggs had already starred in How Stella Got Her Groove Back in 1998. Lathan starred in probably the most beloved Black romances, Love & Basketball in 2000. And the 2 appeared in The Wood and The Best Man together. The experience helped. Brown Sugar rests on Dre and Sidney’s chemistry. Dre is lighthearted and carefree, and tries to play it cool and maintain control for many of the film. Lathan, then again, is the buttoned-up skilled, hyper-aware of an industry that desires to devalue her contributions and talent to raise her profession. The 2 tap-dance on the road between best friends and romantic partners, allowing the escalating sexual tension to linger in every scene.
While the romantic tension between Sidney and Dre drives the film, the remaining of the solid make Brown Sugar special. Mos Def (an aspiring rapper named Cavi) and Queen Latifah (Sidney’s best friend Francine) have their very own dynamic on-screen interactions, especially once Cavi develops a crush on Francine. Boris Kodjoe plays NBA star Kelby Dawson, who tries to woo Sidney, while Kodjoe’s real-life wife Nicole Ari Parker stars as Reese, a successful entertainment lawyer and Dre’s fiancée. Then there’s the Hip-Hop Dalmatians, an interracial rap duo that’s a parody of all the simplistic buffoonery that may dominate popular music. The 2 men, Ren and Ten, played by Erik Weiner and Reg Wyns, are outrageous and pitch-perfect. While scenes concerning the commercialization of hip-hop can easily turn into didactic, Ren and Ten’s antics — which seem at the very least half-improvised — accompanied by the ridiculous in-movie song “The Ho is Mine,” made their scenes a few of the most referenced and repeated by Brown Sugar fans.
Ren and Ten also play into the film’s larger commentary on hip-hop, and the way in which the genre is woven into the plot is masterful. The film’s opening scenes include interviews with hip-hop heavyweights reminiscent of Common and Fab 5 Freddy; Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh team up for a freestyle; and Mos Def raps the movie’s title song over Kanye West’s beats. Furthermore, Dre’s love/hate relationship with hip-hop parallels and drives his love for Sidney, and his quest for something real. It’s the identical way Mos Def’s character Chris opens himself to the opportunity of signing a record deal and partnering with “the person” to get his music to the masses. Hitting on all elements of the culture, Brown Sugar even highlights hip-hop journalism.
In 2002, I used to be knee-deep in collecting problems with Vibe, XXL and The Source. I desired to be Elliott Wilson, who was the editor-in-chief of XXL or Danyel Smith, who was the editor-in-chief at Vibe when Brown Sugar got here out. Watching Lathan play someone who essentially had their jobs and watching the grind, the concert events, the long writing nights just confirmed it was the life I wanted.
“Hip-hop journalism got me off the streets,” Wilson said, adding that he launched a hip-hop magazine within the late Nineteen Eighties called KRUSH. “I’ve at all times had a passion for hip-hop journalism and the industry and I wanted that [to show] here.”
Even while it’s chock-full of famous cameos, good music, and witty banter, the movie never loses sight of the love story. And for romantic comedies to enter cult classic status, they need the aha moment. The one scene that elevates it from a fun flick to an unforgettable one. Brown Sugar has that scene, because of Diggs.
Near the tip of the film, Dre learns that his wife, Reese, is having an affair. So he decides to confront her at a restaurant while she’s on a date. He’s drunk. Sidney is embarrassed. Reese is mortified. Her date is confused. And Dre orders a bottle of champagne “to have fun … my divorce!” Diggs delivers the road like a celebratory song as he clinks a wine glass. I distinctly remember the theater erupting, as they will need to have across the country because that scene has been repeated in Black spaces for 20 years.
Rom-coms often age poorly on account of the male-leaning scripts and stories that ask little of the boys by the use of accountability or true character growth. Brown Sugar, though, holds Dre’s selections to the hearth. After Dre and Sidney catch his ex on the date, Dre tries to hook up with Sidney, but she rebuffs him, telling him what we were all pondering: He’s just acting out because he’s hurt. And when Dre and Reese meet up after their divorce is finalized, we get a rare, realistic take a look at two people whose marriage fell apart but who can still be friends. We also hear Reese’s side, which is cheap. Dre has to spend time figuring himself out, finding his own profession happiness (because of Cavi’s success) before coming back around to be adequate for Sidney.
“[Dre] was flawed in that he really was the A&R [artists and repertoire] dude who had lost his way,” Elliott said. “He became a part of the machine and he needed to own that. He needed closure in his marriage and we wanted to see them shoot pool together. We wanted to see him worthy of Sid.”
After watching Brown Sugar for the primary time, my date and I left the theater on our strategy to O’Charley’s for dinner, beaming concerning the film we’d just watched. I saw a future that felt prefer it may very well be mine, one where individuals who loved hip-hop could grow as much as be full-fledged professionals in fly suits who can change the music’s trajectory while still finding love and happiness. My first date led to a highschool romance that eventually fizzled out. But 20 years later, Brown Sugar remains to be here, playing within the background of my mind like a beat I can’t stop nodding my head to.