Carmen: A Hip Hopera
Encyclopedia
Carmen: A Hip Hopera is a 2001 musical film
produced for television by MTV
and directed by Robert Townsend. The film stars Beyoncé Knowles
in her debut acting role, Mos Def
, Rah Digga
, Wyclef Jean
, Mekhi Phifer
, Da Brat
, Joy Bryant
, Jermaine Dupri
and Lil' Bow Wow. It is based upon Georges Bizet
's 1875 opera, Carmen
, set in Philadelphia and Los Angeles
in modern times, and features a mostly original hip-hop
/R&B
score in place of Bizet's opera.
The movie received mainly negative reviews. To date, it is the second major attempt at an African-American adaptation of the opera, the first being the 1943 Broadway musical Carmen Jones
and its 1954 Academy Award nominated and box office hit film adaptation
.
) is a seductive, aspiring actress who mistakenly causes trouble everywhere she goes. She gets involved with Derek Hill (Mekhi Phifer
), who is engaged to the cocktail waitress, Caela (Reagan Gomez-Preston
). At Lou's Bar, Carmen gets into a fight with a jealous woman. Hill's superior, Lieutenant Miller (Mos Def
) orders Hill to bring Carmen to jail. Carmen tries unsuccessfully to seduce Hill, but she convinces him to let her stop at her apartment to change clothes. There, she puts on lingerie and wins him over. He is caught in the morning (with Carmen nowhere to be found) by Lieutenant Miller (who is now revealed to be a crooked cop), who brings Caela with him as he arrests Hill. Caela slaps Hill and tells him she hates him.
While in jail, Hill cannot stop thinking about Carmen. She writes him a letter, and he shares his obsession with cellmates Jalil (Lil Bow Wow) and Pockets (Jermaine Dupri
). While Hill is in jail, Carmen meets the famous rapper Blaze (Casey Lee) at a nightclub, The Spot. He wants to bring her to Los Angeles, but succeeds only in bringing her best friends. Carmen promises to meet them in LA once Hill is out of jail. Unfortunately, Hill is facing a year of probation once he gets out. However, after he gets into an argument with Miller, he punches him in the face (after calling Carmen a "silly ho"), he and Carmen flee to Los Angeles. However, Carmen is unaware about the incident.
Things in Los Angeles don't go well. Carmen can't find an acting job, and Hill's fugitive status prevents him from obtaining employment. She runs into her best friends, Rasheeda (Rah Digga
) and Nikki (Joy Bryant
), who are being treated like royalty by Blaze. The three of them have their tarot
cards read by a psychic (Wyclef Jean
). Rasheeda and Nikki receive favorable fortunes, but Carmen's cards read "ruin," "sorrow" and "death." She decides that it's time for a change. She goes to Blaze's rehearsal and wins an invitation to be his date to his next concert. At the same time, a radio falls into the bathtub which Carmen was just in and electrifies. Carmen wonders if that was meant to be her death.
Shortly afterwards, Carmen breaks up with Hill and moves in with her friends in a house apparently owned by Blaze. She feels that she shouldn't give up her life for him, even though he did for her. Much like his counterpart in the original opera, Hill is devastated. He also learns from Caela that he is in danger. Since Hill knows how crooked he is, Miller wants to get rid of him. But Hill goes to Carmen to try to win her over again and make her leave with him. Carmen doesn't want to leave and tells Hill that she is staying. While they are arguing, Miller is watching them and accidentally shoots Carmen in the back twice with a silenced gun while aiming for Hill. Carmen is dying in Hill's arms and she can't talk when Hill keeps asking what was wrong. He touches her back and sees blood running down his hand. Sadly, Carmen dies in his arms. He lays the dead body down on the floor and goes to fight Miller. Hill and Miller have their last fight which ends with Miller falling to his death. Rasheeda and Nikki find Carmen's dead body and are both shocked and devastated. The story ends with Hill's wrongful arrest. The film officially ends with the rapping narrator (Da Brat
) laying a rose down for Carmen stating "Immortal Beloved...Carmen Brown, There'll never be another".
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
produced for television by MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
and directed by Robert Townsend. The film stars Beyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles , often known simply as Beyoncé, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child...
in her debut acting role, Mos Def
Mos Def
Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...
, Rah Digga
Rah Digga
Rah Digga is an American rapper. Well known as a long time member of the Flipmode Squad, a hip hop group led by Busta Rhymes, she parted ways amicably with the group in 2007. She has been called "one of rap's most prominent women MCs" by Allmusic and "one of hip-hop's most skilled female MCs" in...
, Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean is a Haitian musician, record producer, and politician. At age nine, Jean moved to the United States with his family and has spent much of his life in the country...
, Mekhi Phifer
Mekhi Phifer
Mekhi Thira Phifer is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his multi-year role as Dr. Greg Pratt on NBC's long-running medical drama ER and his co-starring role opposite Eminem in the feature film 8 Mile...
, Da Brat
Da Brat
Shawntae Harris , better known as Da Brat, is an American rapper and actress. Her debut album, Funkdafied, sold one million copies, making her the first female rapper to have a platinum-selling album.-Early life:...
, Joy Bryant
Joy Bryant
Joy Bryant is an American actress and former fashion model. Joy currently stars as Jasmine Trussell in Parenthood-Early life:...
, Jermaine Dupri
Jermaine Dupri
Jermaine Dupri Mauldin , known as Jermaine Dupri or JD, is an American record producer, songwriter and rapper.- Early life and career :...
and Lil' Bow Wow. It is based upon Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
's 1875 opera, Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
, set in Philadelphia and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in modern times, and features a mostly original hip-hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
/R&B
Contemporary R&B
Contemporary R&B is a music genre that combines elements of hip hop, soul, R&B and funk.Although the abbreviation “R&B” originates from traditional rhythm and blues music, today the term R&B is most often used to describe a style of African American music originating after the demise of disco in...
score in place of Bizet's opera.
The movie received mainly negative reviews. To date, it is the second major attempt at an African-American adaptation of the opera, the first being the 1943 Broadway musical Carmen Jones
Carmen Jones
Carmen Jones is a 1943 Broadway musical starring Muriel Smith in the title role, later made into a 1954 musical film; the play also ran for a season in 1991 at London's Old Vic and most recently in London's Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre in 2007. It is an updating of the Georges Bizet...
and its 1954 Academy Award nominated and box office hit film adaptation
Carmen Jones (film)
Carmen Jones is a 1954 American musical film produced and directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by Harry Kleiner is based on the libretto for the 1943 stage production of the same name by Oscar Hammerstein II, which was inspired by an adaptation of the 1845 Prosper Mérimée novella Carmen by...
.
Plot
Carmen Brown (Beyoncé KnowlesBeyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles , often known simply as Beyoncé, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child...
) is a seductive, aspiring actress who mistakenly causes trouble everywhere she goes. She gets involved with Derek Hill (Mekhi Phifer
Mekhi Phifer
Mekhi Thira Phifer is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his multi-year role as Dr. Greg Pratt on NBC's long-running medical drama ER and his co-starring role opposite Eminem in the feature film 8 Mile...
), who is engaged to the cocktail waitress, Caela (Reagan Gomez-Preston
Reagan Gomez-Preston
Reagan Gomez-Preston is an American actress.-Early life:Gomez-Preston was born in Detroit to a Puerto Rican mother, Cheryl Gomez, and an African-American father, Bennett Preston. She has a younger brother named Kyle....
). At Lou's Bar, Carmen gets into a fight with a jealous woman. Hill's superior, Lieutenant Miller (Mos Def
Mos Def
Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...
) orders Hill to bring Carmen to jail. Carmen tries unsuccessfully to seduce Hill, but she convinces him to let her stop at her apartment to change clothes. There, she puts on lingerie and wins him over. He is caught in the morning (with Carmen nowhere to be found) by Lieutenant Miller (who is now revealed to be a crooked cop), who brings Caela with him as he arrests Hill. Caela slaps Hill and tells him she hates him.
While in jail, Hill cannot stop thinking about Carmen. She writes him a letter, and he shares his obsession with cellmates Jalil (Lil Bow Wow) and Pockets (Jermaine Dupri
Jermaine Dupri
Jermaine Dupri Mauldin , known as Jermaine Dupri or JD, is an American record producer, songwriter and rapper.- Early life and career :...
). While Hill is in jail, Carmen meets the famous rapper Blaze (Casey Lee) at a nightclub, The Spot. He wants to bring her to Los Angeles, but succeeds only in bringing her best friends. Carmen promises to meet them in LA once Hill is out of jail. Unfortunately, Hill is facing a year of probation once he gets out. However, after he gets into an argument with Miller, he punches him in the face (after calling Carmen a "silly ho"), he and Carmen flee to Los Angeles. However, Carmen is unaware about the incident.
Things in Los Angeles don't go well. Carmen can't find an acting job, and Hill's fugitive status prevents him from obtaining employment. She runs into her best friends, Rasheeda (Rah Digga
Rah Digga
Rah Digga is an American rapper. Well known as a long time member of the Flipmode Squad, a hip hop group led by Busta Rhymes, she parted ways amicably with the group in 2007. She has been called "one of rap's most prominent women MCs" by Allmusic and "one of hip-hop's most skilled female MCs" in...
) and Nikki (Joy Bryant
Joy Bryant
Joy Bryant is an American actress and former fashion model. Joy currently stars as Jasmine Trussell in Parenthood-Early life:...
), who are being treated like royalty by Blaze. The three of them have their tarot
Tarot
The tarot |trionfi]] and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) is a pack of cards , used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play a group of card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot...
cards read by a psychic (Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean is a Haitian musician, record producer, and politician. At age nine, Jean moved to the United States with his family and has spent much of his life in the country...
). Rasheeda and Nikki receive favorable fortunes, but Carmen's cards read "ruin," "sorrow" and "death." She decides that it's time for a change. She goes to Blaze's rehearsal and wins an invitation to be his date to his next concert. At the same time, a radio falls into the bathtub which Carmen was just in and electrifies. Carmen wonders if that was meant to be her death.
Shortly afterwards, Carmen breaks up with Hill and moves in with her friends in a house apparently owned by Blaze. She feels that she shouldn't give up her life for him, even though he did for her. Much like his counterpart in the original opera, Hill is devastated. He also learns from Caela that he is in danger. Since Hill knows how crooked he is, Miller wants to get rid of him. But Hill goes to Carmen to try to win her over again and make her leave with him. Carmen doesn't want to leave and tells Hill that she is staying. While they are arguing, Miller is watching them and accidentally shoots Carmen in the back twice with a silenced gun while aiming for Hill. Carmen is dying in Hill's arms and she can't talk when Hill keeps asking what was wrong. He touches her back and sees blood running down his hand. Sadly, Carmen dies in his arms. He lays the dead body down on the floor and goes to fight Miller. Hill and Miller have their last fight which ends with Miller falling to his death. Rasheeda and Nikki find Carmen's dead body and are both shocked and devastated. The story ends with Hill's wrongful arrest. The film officially ends with the rapping narrator (Da Brat
Da Brat
Shawntae Harris , better known as Da Brat, is an American rapper and actress. Her debut album, Funkdafied, sold one million copies, making her the first female rapper to have a platinum-selling album.-Early life:...
) laying a rose down for Carmen stating "Immortal Beloved...Carmen Brown, There'll never be another".
Cast
- Mekhi PhiferMekhi PhiferMekhi Thira Phifer is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his multi-year role as Dr. Greg Pratt on NBC's long-running medical drama ER and his co-starring role opposite Eminem in the feature film 8 Mile...
as Derek Hill - Beyoncé KnowlesBeyoncé KnowlesBeyoncé Giselle Knowles , often known simply as Beyoncé, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child...
as Carmen Brown - Mos DefMos DefDante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...
as Lieutenant Miller - Rah DiggaRah DiggaRah Digga is an American rapper. Well known as a long time member of the Flipmode Squad, a hip hop group led by Busta Rhymes, she parted ways amicably with the group in 2007. She has been called "one of rap's most prominent women MCs" by Allmusic and "one of hip-hop's most skilled female MCs" in...
as Rasheeda - Wyclef JeanWyclef JeanWyclef Jean is a Haitian musician, record producer, and politician. At age nine, Jean moved to the United States with his family and has spent much of his life in the country...
as Fortune Teller - Lil' Bow Wow as Jalil
- Da BratDa BratShawntae Harris , better known as Da Brat, is an American rapper and actress. Her debut album, Funkdafied, sold one million copies, making her the first female rapper to have a platinum-selling album.-Early life:...
as Rapping Narrator - Jermaine DupriJermaine DupriJermaine Dupri Mauldin , known as Jermaine Dupri or JD, is an American record producer, songwriter and rapper.- Early life and career :...
as Pockets - Reagan Gomez-PrestonReagan Gomez-PrestonReagan Gomez-Preston is an American actress.-Early life:Gomez-Preston was born in Detroit to a Puerto Rican mother, Cheryl Gomez, and an African-American father, Bennett Preston. She has a younger brother named Kyle....
as Caela - Joy BryantJoy BryantJoy Bryant is an American actress and former fashion model. Joy currently stars as Jasmine Trussell in Parenthood-Early life:...
as Nikki