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On this episode of Hip Hop Movie Club,

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we take a ride on Travis Scott:

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Look Mom I Can Fly

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he documentary-style film that led up

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to the release of his critically acclaimed Astroworld album.

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We break down his relationship with his fans,

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the dark underside of this relationship that foreshadows tragedy to come,

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and DynoWright takes this film to task for being a 90 minute commercial.

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I'm DynoWright, filmmaker, designer, longtime hip hop fan.

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I'm JB, 80s and 90s nostalgia junkie, longtime hip hop fan.

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I'm Boogie, a DJ, longtime hip hop fan.

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the 2019 Travis Scott documentary entitled Look Mom, I Can Fly.

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This opens up appropriately with an interview with him on a roller coaster.

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The gist of it is he is preparing to release his third studio album, Astroworld, which was very highly anticipated.

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He understands that he's in a place that he is in because of the fans and he always

tries to give back to them. With that, I can always appreciate him.

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Yeah, I really picked up on his connection with the fans.

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That's something that sets him apart.

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You see several...looks like teenage kids saying this is the best day of my life or they

like see him lock eyes or calling out people and people enjoy it.

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But it's not without controversy because I had no idea that his concerts featured raging

and crowd diving and crowd surfing.

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Unfortunately,

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Many people fainted, getting bloodied in mosh pits.

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This movie's two years before the big Astroworld tragedy in 2021, where the 10 people died.

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Okay.

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So it didn't get into that.

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I was even concerned

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mean, there's bodies being passed around and I'm like, are they unconscious or this person

not alive?

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Like what's going on?

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And it's just kind of like they're just removing them and then they're going on.

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And I was like, wow, that's wild.

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They pass like two completely limp bodies overhead and then put them onto

the paramedic stretchers and then like as soon as the paramedic stretchers are leaving, they're

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like, okay, back to the show.

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It's like, what the heck?

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Give me a thumbs up that we’re good to go.

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What?

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Yeah.

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give a thumbs up and yeah.

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It's terrible foreshadowing for what happens in 2021.

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Yeah!

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It's all fun and games until someone actually dies.

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He interacted with his fans, but he it was a mob scene wherever he would go like they're bum rushing his car.

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And then like the first Astroworld convention that they show people knocking down the

fence and the barriers, it becomes really dangerous.

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Yeah.

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What it does is, it it makes you take the fans’ side, almost.

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Like, oh, we got to break down this barrier, but that's super dangerous.

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That piece of chain link fence is really heavy.

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So it's almost irresponsible.

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Yeah.

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Well, I do have a son, but my son's not old enough.

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But if my son was old enough and said, Dad, that's where I want to go, no, absolutely not.

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Absolutely not.

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Just hang in the back, kid.

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It was cool the way they did, the doc if you talk about the cinematography that

went into this, it was, was neatly done in terms of seeing him recording some of these

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songs like Butterfly Effect and Sicko Mode and then seeing him on track.

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I love his exuberance.

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Like when he's, he's got it, like he's jumping around, jumping on the couch and getting

all pumped up with the producers and stuff.

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I really love that when you're really passionate about your music and you know that it's

going to be a hit.

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this was all well and good, but it really wasn't a documentary for me because he's listed

as Cactus Jack as a co-director of this documentary.

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So already it's not that objective.

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It was really for me, it was another 90 minute commercial for Astroworld.

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Again, this was Still Rolling Promos.

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is look mom, I can promote myself.

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Hahaha!

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Because it doesn't really have any conflict except for the

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not winning the Grammy like oof, He was upset about it, but so what?

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the story doesn't continue after that.

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We just sort of have that happen and he just sort of goes on with his life. Fine.

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What they do is they show his next concert and it's another huge rager.

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I think this is the one with

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the mayor of Houston giving him the key to the city.

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here's kind of rising from that adversity.

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But this film doesn't challenge us to do anything or think about anything.

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It's just like, Travis Scott's awesome, which he is.

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think objectively, you see it in his fans' eyes.

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He really resonates with them.

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But that's kind of it.

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In terms of hip hop canon, this doesn't really elevate hip hop.

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It's just sort of...

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Here's another success story, but, I think it is more well-rounded than some of the other

ones we've seen.

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Like a lot of that footage from when he was a kid is illuminating, but,

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successful rapper. Enh.

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Didn't really do it for me.

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He's a good guy he's not a bad guy of course but yeah it's you have to

be a little more objective...when I watch a film like this it's like well you're being

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marketed to so just watch out for that. Here's someone that you can truly get behind and I

you know I if I was at age if I was in that demographic I would be jumping off the stage

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too like I was moshing

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at that age, change the band or the artist on the stage.

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those kids look like what I looked like when I was seeing bands at that time in your life,

especially when your musical tastes are forming.

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they'll be Travis Scott fans for the rest of their lives.

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And this movie isn't for a guy like me It's really a film for people like that.

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And so in that case,

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It has some utility, but in the grand scope of the hip hop canon, this isn't Style Wars.

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I don't know if it's an important film, for his fans, it's good fan service.

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Yeah.

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There's a story about perseverance in here too and they showed him performing for about 15

people in 2014.

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Every big name goes

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through that though.

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Everyone has to pay their dues.

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He's not exempt from that.

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So that was cool.

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I'm like, yeah, you do have to pay your dues and play in front of, you know, a handful of

people, but everybody has to do that.

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And I did also like that he...

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He steered the young Don Toliver, like he gravitated towards him, spotted the young

talent, gave him a platform and he is becoming a star of his own.

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Like he, he had some pretty big hits as well.

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So he kind of paid it forward a bit.

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yeah, that's a responsible good thing to do.

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An artist who has trod the path of success.

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He's lifting as he climbs, which is good.

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Yeah.

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don't know.

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The intent of this was to be a full blown documentary about Travis Scott.

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Obviously they had a lot of footage and it was leading up to the Astroworld release and

the huge launch, which coincided with another shoe launch and hordes of people, right?

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Another marketing project!

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They kind of like sprinkled in the flashbacks too.

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So it was kind of like, all right.

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He came from.

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Netflix packages this as a documentary, but it really isn't a documentary.

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This is a 90 minute commercial.

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It's fan service, yeah.

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It's fan service.

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You know, there's no critical voices about other than the controversies.

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You don't get a voice about “Is his music actually any good?”

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No one ever asked that question in this in this documentary.

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You only hear like it's changing my life or it saved my life, which is great.

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There's nothing wrong with that.

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But if you really want to call this a documentary, you should really have another voice

saying, eh you know, his first album was two and a half stars.

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But.

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It's not a documentary, even though Netflix says it is.

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I hear you.

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I learned a good amount about the young man.

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I gained some respect for him through this.

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The film did have one Easter egg just for me.

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They show him at the Grammys and he's wearing this T-shirt.

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This is a Rush 1993 Counterparts tour T-shirt.

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And so he had this exact same shirt and I recognized the back of it.

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I like, hey, wait a minute.

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That's a Rush T-shirt.

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And so if you look at pictures of he's actually wearing the same shirt.

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and it's not it's not the only rock T-shirt he's been seen wearing.

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He's got a ton of them.

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I was like, whoa.

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I was the meme.

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I was the Leonardo DiCaprio meme, pointing at the TV.

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You

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cool.

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That's cool.

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have that shirt.

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You want to go around and rate this film?

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Okay, so Boogie for Travis Scott, look mom I can fly.

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Would you bring this funky flick back or leave it in the vault?

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So despite the few things that I did enjoy about one, I'm going to leave it in the vault..

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DynoWright, for Travis Scott: Look Mom I Can Fly.

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Would you bring this funky flick back or leave it in the vault?

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For Travis Scott the man, thumbs up.

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For Look Mom I Can Fly, leave it in the vault.

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Crash and burn.

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I for myself for look mom I can fly.

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I will bring this funky flick back.

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I learned a lot about.

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his upbringing and the demographic and some of the behind the scenes of how he made some

of the music so I found value in that.

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Hop Movie Club, the show for serious hip hop fans who want to deepen their cultural

knowledge.

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I'm Dyno Wright, filmmaker, designer, longtime hip hop fan, and did you know Travis Scott

played Rider University in 2016?

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I wasn't there, but it definitely happened.

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I'm JB, 80s and 90s nostalgia junkie, longtime Hip-Hop fan.

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And did you know that many famous acts performed at the Astroworld Amusement Park in

Texas, including the Beach Boys, the Grateful Dead, and Bob Dylan, but also Run DMC,

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Whodini and the Fat Boys as part of the Fresh Fest in the mid-80s.

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Hmm, nice.

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And I'm Boogie, a DJ, longtime hip hop fan, and one of my favorite Air Jordan

collaborations are the Cactus Jack editions with the Reverse Nike Swoosh.

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Continuing on that, the first sneaker to debut a Reverse Swoosh was the Air Darwin in 1994 worn by The Worm, Dennis Rodman.

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The second was the Nike Air Flare worn by Andre Agassi, which also debuted in 1994, but

later on.

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Nice.

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the next episode of Hip Hop Movie Club, have an encore presentation of Set It Off, ahead

of our 30th anniversary screening at SteelStacks in Bethlehem on the 18th of March.

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Tickets are free thanks to ArtsQuest.

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And remember, don't hate, radiate.

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Bing.

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Shine bright like a diamond.

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hahahahah uh

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Ha ha!