Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Reign Supreme’ On Netflix, About The Beginnings Of The French Hip Hop Scene In The Early ‘80s

The origins of hip hop as a music genre are well known. What’s less known is how the very American genre made its way around the world, where kids living in Europe somehow managed to identify with the music and start their own groups. A new French series details how one of that country’s best known hip hop acts got their start.

REIGN SUPREME: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A California Highway Patrol car drives through a darkened wooded road while a young man walks through.

The Gist: The guy walking through the woods near San Francisco in 1983 is Daniel Bigeault (Andranic Manet), a musician from Paris. He’s gotten into hip hop and somehow heard about this jam session in the woods, and finds it inspiring. When he gets back to Paris, he’s eager to ditch the band he’s in and express himself via DJing hip hop. One problem: The junkie his roommates rented his room to sold Daniel’s LPs, and now he has to get him back. In the meantime, he’s looking to DJ for a pirate radio station that’s playing hip hop.

In the Saint-Denis projects, Didier Morville (Melvin Boomer) and Bruno Lopes (Anthony Bajon), high school classmates who are begrudging acquaintances, are also getting into hip hop, and they start to bond when they run into each other on the metro on their way to watch some breakdancing at the Place du Trocadéro, a public square near the Eiffel Tower.

They both have issues with their dads: Didier’s father is a pastor at the local church, but is abusive, has some mysterious business dealings, and seems to also have issues with women in his past. Bruno is in a more of a classic nuclear family, but his father is determined to get him into a prestigious soccer academy, despite the fact that Bruno no longer enjoys the sport like he used to. Didier, for his part, knows that he needs to get out of the projects, especially after a friend dies from an overdose.

Daniel meets a young woman named Beatrice (Léo Chalié), who’s working at her father’s bodega where he goes to make a phone call (remember, it’s 1983). She comes over to his flat and, while she is intrigued by his interest in this new style of music, she’s more interested in him.

Didier and Bruno start to bond and practice breakdancing, but a mishap at Didier’s flat puts him in jeopardy with his dad.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Reign Supreme (Original title: Le Monde de demain) is reminiscent of Wu-Tang: An American Saga; both tell the origins of legendary hip hop groups.

Our Take: The group whose origin is being told in Reign Supreme is Suprême NTM, one of the original rap groups to come out of France’s hip hop scene. Reign Supreme is a fictionalized version of how the major players in the group met, but it’s also an examination on how hip hop came to France and other European countries in the early ’80s.

Because of the fictionalized nature of the series, there needs to be a little bit of conflict, and since we’re not followers of NTM, we have no idea if what we see young Bruno (aka Kool Shen) or Didier (aka JoeyStarr) face actually happen. Was Didier’s dad an abusive jerk? Did one of his friends OD? Was Bruno that good at soccer? Did they bond by watching breakdancing at the Trocadéro? The same questions come up with Daniel (aka Dee Nasty): Did his records get stolen? Did he swap LSD stamps in order to get them back?

We get the feeling your interest in the series is going to parallel your curiosity about hip hop in Europe. Because we’re unsure about whether the show is going to examine the very American genre connecting with kids in places like France or just concentrate on how the members of NTM got together and became successful, we’re not sure if the show is going to be compelling enough to interest anyone but dedicated hip hop fans.

Yes, NTM has had some international exposure, and their hardcore style put them in some conflict with French police departments. But, let’s be honest: The group is little known outside of Europe. And because the show is very much an intimate, slow-moving biographical story, we’re not sure what incentive there is for people on this side of the Atlantic to care about NTM’s origins.

Sex and Skin: Beatrice tells Daniel she’s attracted to him by taking off her top when he goes to the kitchen to get them some beers.

Parting Shot: Bruno goes to his room and punches his mattress as his dad continues to rant about the fact that he doesn’t want to play soccer anymore.

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Léo Chalié as Beatrice, who doesn’t mess around when it comes to getting what she wants.

Most Pilot-y Line: After Didier sees his dad yelling at a woman, he asks who she is. “Not your mom. She’s dead, I told you. And no one misses her.” That’s some toxic dialogue right there.

Our Call: STREAM IT. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with Reign Supreme, its narrow focus on the origins of NTM makes it a hard sell on this side of the world.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.