Synopsis
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, skateboarding and hip-hop culture collide in downtown Manhattan. Archival footage from the era showcases the fusion of these two forms of expression.
All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997)
2021 ‘All the Streets Are Silent’ Directed by Jeremy Elkin
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The sub-title describes a documentary focused on the intermingling of two seemingly dissonant cultures…that of skateboarding and hip hop.
However, this film is actually focused on a small community of friends and acquaintances in New York who were able to sell their lifestyle through various business ventures, like clubs, clothing lines and films during this time.
Not to say this wasn’t interesting. All of the stories told discussed brands (Zoo York, Supreme), films (Larry Clark’s Kids) and clubs (Mars - New York’s first hip hop club) that I was quite interested in knowing more about. It just felt like what was promised and what was provided were not the same thing.
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an indispensable wealth of footage for anyone interested in the trifecta of old NY, hip hop and skateboarding even if just for the early performance clips from Busta Rhymes and Jay-Z but it’s the shots of the city itself, covering a decade of the streets and buildings changing, that really carry weight - would love to watch this with an enthusiastic city audience
(can’t for the life of me figure out why this is all 2.35, including cropping the archival footage - if you need to conform to a wide aspect ratio, at least split the difference and do 1.78)
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"Skateboarding was like a reinvention of the architecture of New York City."
I have a tough time with most documentaries because they always tell too tidy and altogether utopian a narrative - every doc about a "scene" in a time or place would have you believe it was lightning in a bottle: that everyone knew what they were all about, nobody was making it up as they go along, and (always most importantly) every one was open and accepting of one another. Ironically, this happens most frequently in docs like this one, that are comprised mostly of interviews with the people who were actually there. Who can blame them? We all write narratives of our lives retroactively, and isn't it…
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Amazing document of NYC skateboarding and rap culture. Probably covers enough ground for like 3 movies so it's a lot off stuff happening quickly but otherwise great. Let's all agree to stop letting Moby be in documentaries though.
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One for the hip hop historians. A fun, fascinating film that succeeds primarily as a document of pre-gentrification New York City and its eclectic mix of cultures and art forms. Most interesting for me was the look at the Mars nightclub which shows how vital disc jockeys were to taste making and fusing the house, hip hop, punk scenes and more. This isn't punching into the territory of a film like The Decline of the Western Civilization, but if you enjoy that style of documentary, you'll have a good time with this for sure. What's lackluster is that this documentary is it fails to tap into how the brands it highlights vultured on the styles, spaces and people who created the appeal. It winds up a complicated depiction of the ecosystem of art and commerce that far overemphasizes the entrepreneurship while ironically losing sight of how this greased the skids for the gentrification it critiques early in the film.
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If Moby keeps turning up in things, he's going to break Henry Rollins's record for appearing in documentaries.
Busta Rhymes really loved rapping about dragons.
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The premise of this doc is extremely my shit but I think on execution it falls a bit flat? Idk like it talks about skate culture, and it talks about hip hop culture, but it seems like it’s lacking in a driving thesis about the convergence of both, other than the fact that there is indeed overlap? I learned a little bit about each culture and not much about the relationship between the two, but overall this is still enjoyable. The archive footage is super cool and the whole thing looks great. I just wish this took a more personal and less superficial approach- it kinda feels like it’s trying to be Minding the Gap but doesn’t have the right tools to do so.
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This documentary does a great job of capturing a great time in skateboarding. Pre-internet living in the 1990s was a time to be young. Every ounce of knowledge came from a physical item whether it was a magazine or book. Once skateboard videos became a trend we got to glimpse into cities we had never been to.
Amazing to see the other side of the spectrum since I always associated skateboarding with punk & crossover thrash. Hip hop in our scene was very popular just I wasn’t as crazy about it then. Now I fully recognize how integral it was. Seeing so many artists that got their start from this isn’t surprising. The hustle then was real and again, sans-internet. The…
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When something feels so tailor-made for you and your specific interests and not only indulges that and entertains you, but inundates you with new information, revelations, and little bits of magic, you can't help but feel an overwhelming sense of pleasure and wonder...and then give it five stars. From the grand to the miniscule, this did it for me; gave me that vicarious nostalgia, made me wish I could travel back in time to experience all this, kinda made me wanna cry. I just want another four hours of it. Communities, especially New York, are so fucking inexplicably marvelously unique and stories like this make me wish I could see the lives of everyone everywhere because THERE IS ALWAYS SO MUCH GOING ON and you never know what might happen.
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So good.. There was so much packed into this and it all blended seamlessly. Such a good soundtrack... all of the footage of freestyles or the Stretch and Bobbito show or just footage of the clubs at the time... incredible. The amount of legends they have in this film is crazy, I loved all of the interviews, and cool Bjork cameo too. Amazing amazing, wanted to watch it immediately over again. Especially as someone who works in Radio and Hip Hop radio, this film was so inspiring, let's get back to this this is how radio should be.