Films and TV shows that feel like The Message by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five

A raw, anxious portrait of inner-city decay in which the narrator feels himself close to the edge, with a groove that makes the dread danceable.

1. The Get Down (2016): Dramatizes the 1970s Bronx birth of hip-hop, with Grandmaster Flash himself as a character.
2. Wild Style (1982): The foundational hip-hop film, shot on real South Bronx streets with the original pioneers.
3. Beat Street (1984): Early-80s DJs, breakdancers and graffiti writers in a struggling Bronx.
4. Style Wars (1984): Documentary on New York's graffiti and subway culture in the same decaying city.
5. Fort Apache, the Bronx (1981): A bleak police drama set in the burned-out South Bronx the song describes.
6. Do the Right Thing (1989): Brooklyn street tension building to a breaking point, with the same social anger.
7. Hip Hop Evolution (2016): Documentary series tracing the culture Flash and the Furious Five helped create.
8. Boyz n the Hood (1991): Neighborhood poverty and violence, and the question of how to survive it.