We’re back in the Bronx, one year
after the Fantastic Four plus one’s
battle with the Notorious Three.
A spree of spoken word and thus

we are witness to their lives – artists
at Les Inferno, a drug hub for organized
crime. But what does that matter when
you’re writing lyrics, primed and ready for

when chicks flock to your feet each night
– Decks spin on repeat, and you never
think to ask the quintessential question.
Is what I’m doing right?

Life’s in rewind, and I’m not talking about
The Grandmaster’s Get Down-finding
crayon as their families frown at our heroes
supposedly wasting their time in pursuit

of legato rhythms, and rhymes which
tell the truth of their reality – the Black
Experience, like Mr Gunns’ invitation to
Ezekiel to attend a party in White Boy Land.

Mylene is not the sweet girl she was, tainted
by the corruption of the bared-bodied music
business; a place of sexed-up Barbie dolls eager
to put out for dollars, making seven figures

for the elite-collared men of the current capitalist
empire. As her diaphragm bloats, her lyrics float
down, through Green Street, rotating around
those twelve-inch spherical spinning tops.

A stranger to her family, now friends with wolves
in wool, and Zeke – her longest and greatest
supporter, always rehearsing new lines each day,
swaying at the thought of a bastardized Get Down.

Part 2 improves on its brother, Part 1, written
by its mother, Baz. Though, many characters
carried their prisons with them, uncanny to
a psychological psychedelic Alcatraz.

Its comic book quality was flipping great with DC’s
dark themes and the trippiness of Strange. Just one
more example of Netflix’s range of flavour and flair,
oft told from the mind behind Dizzy’s microphone hair.

So, what does it mean to be the token black? Just ask
Zeke, he’s on Gunns’ political plaque, seemingly merging
black with white as the Bronx fights its own civil war,
abiding by the laws of the streets, there is no contract.

The final episodes leaned into the now with the unity
of the Bronx’s rap groups: The Get Down Brothers,
The Notorious Three and others like them via musical
hoops, not to confuse it with those disco paratroopers.

Those dance-offs were as chocka blocked as Cisco’s
Golden Gate Bridge. Netflix has given us another
batch of great TV that picks at constructs like race,
religion and gender… with prowess and grace.

Gender is performative, as depicted in this show
going to toe to toe with awesome actors, wicked
tunes and cinematic factors that really represent
the never-ending battle between black and white.

So will we get a Part 3? I goddamn hope so!
I want to see the rise of Freekey Zekey and many
more of all those cultural highs entwined in those
oh so relevant race-baiting political war games.

Regardless of whether you like the story or not,
the soundtrack is one that can never be forgot.