Brooklyn Babylon

Brooklyn Babylon is a 2001 film directed by Marc Levin, and a modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet and the Song of Solomon, set in the backdrop of the Crown Heights riot, starring Black Thought of The Roots.

In Brooklyn's Crown Heights, where West Indian Rastafarians and other Blacks live next door to the Jewish Chabad community, ethnic tensions are high. After a minor car crash, the headstrong Judah and other Jewish men who patrol the neighborhood as vigilantes confront Scratch, a mouthy African-American hustler. Passengers in the cars make eye contact: Sol, a hip-hop musician, songwriter, and artist (Scratch's friend), and Sara, who is betrothed to Judah but wants to go to college and be on her own. Over the next few days, while Scratch and Judah's conflict escalates in violence, Sara and Sol connect in ways that echo Sheba and Solomon.

Brooklyn Babylon was the second made of Levin's late nineties hip-hop trilogy, which began with Slam, a searing prison drama starring Saul Williams, Sonja Sohn, and Bonz Malone. The third installment was 2000's Whiteboyz, a black comedy about white farm kids in Iowa who want to be black rappers, starred Danny Hoch, Dash Mihok, Mark Webber, and Piper Perabo.