Guardian staff 

Baz Luhrmann’s The Get Down: Netflix unveils first trailer

The Australian director’s first TV show, to air later this year, is set in the Bronx in the late 70s as hip-hop is born and disco dies
  
  

The Get Down
The Get Down: the show follows the adventures of South Bronx teenagers in the late 70s. Photograph: Netflix

On the day that it announced it would be expanding into 130 more countries, Netflix unveiled the trailer for one of its highest-profile future shows.

Created by Baz Luhrmann, famous for films including Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby, The Get Down is a music-laden drama set in the South Bronx in the late 70s, as hip-hop is born in the New York borough.

It stars Shameik Moore, Justice Smith, Tremaine Browne Jr and Skylan Brooks as a crew of teenagers exploring the musical upheavals in their neighbourhood, and Herizen Guardiola as Mylene Cruz, who aspires to be a disco diva in defiance of her religious family.

The trailer brings these strands of the stories together, featuring Luhrmann’s typically elaborate dance scenes, weaving together old and new music. It closes with a version of the Supremes’ Up the Ladder to the Roof.

Before that, there is sex, violence, graffiti and an incredulous inquiry: “You don’t know what the fucking get down is?” The show is named after an old funk term for the section of a record that makes people dance.

Luhrmann first had the idea for the show 10 years ago; Grandmaster Flash and the veteran music journalist Nelson George were consultants on the script. It is expected to air in the autumn of 2016.

 

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