If you don’t know the story of Roxanne Shanté, Netflix’s new movie Roxanne Roxanne should put you on to her true story of how she came up and made a name of herself in hip-hop back in the ’80s from the underground in Queensbridge. As you can see from the trailer above, the biopic takes place in the early days of rap and centers around the life she was living between ages 14-18, which involved street dealings, drugs, older boyfriends (played by Mahershala Ali) and a very strict mother (played by Nia Long) surrounded by a neighborhood with no hope.
Roxanne Roxanne is produced by Pharrell & Forrest Whittaker and will see a limited release run in theaters starting March 23. After that, it will premiere on Netflix for everyone else.
The music is also by RZA.