Netflix’s Latest Original Show Is Very Surprising

Netflix just premiered the sizzle real for its next original series, The Get Down, and boy is it sizzlin'. It's also electrifying and unconventional — not surprising given the music-heavy drama was created by auteur Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge). The series is about a group of teenagers living in the South Bronx in the late 1970s. Crime-plagued New York was a rough place to be a young Black person in the bicentennial decade, but it was also the backdrop of a music revolution: the joint birth of hip-hop, punk, and disco. The show stars a cast of newcomers including Shameik Moore, Justice Smith, Herizen Guardiola, and Skylan Brook. But there are a few familiar faces in the trailer, like Giancarlo Esposito, who played fried chicken aficionado and drug king Gus Fring on Breaking Bad. Oh, and Jaden Smith makes an appearance, too, because why wouldn't he? Part one of the series will premiere on Netflix sometime in 2016. We're crossing our fingers that it's soon, though, because this trailer is bananas. There are discos, guns, fires, make-outs, rock climbing, drag queens, slam poetry, booty-shaking, hip-hop showdowns, and more — plus original songs that are hella catchy. We also heard some instantly quotable lines, like this one: "You don't know what the fucking get down is?!" We will soon.