Teofilo Colon Jr

I'm biased due to my working on the 1998 urban crime drama movie BELLY, directed by acclaimed and innovative music video ace, Hype Williams. The story revolves around Tommy (played by rapper DMX) and Sincere (played by rapper NAS) leading a group of criminals who run into difficulty expanding their drug dealing business. I remember watching audiences in New York City walk out shaking their heads in disappointment after they saw the movie in theaters. You would have thought you were watching people leaving a funeral as so many had so much invested in the movie. Particularly, the prospect of Hip Hop Stars being front and center of a Hollywood movie dramatizing stories hip-hop audiences could relate to. Now, 20 years later, with audiences discovering the movie on DVD or being rebroadcast over and over again on cable networks like Black Entertainment Television (BET), the perception of BELLY has taken a life of it's own and is now some sort of cult classic. Watching the evolution of audience's perception of the movie BELLY has been fascinating and maybe time has shown us that those audiences have been rewarded after witnessing a one-of-a-kind movie.