Watching that mini-series was hard. Really hard. Like I was crying at work because I decided to start watching part 4 – hard. I had friends who were like “why are you doing that to yourself?” Because they knew how heavy the episode would be. How heavy the whole series would be, and how much it hits home and has hit home for the Black and Brown communities. Like I said yesterday, the entire cast and crew did an amazing job telling this story and what made it so great was that it was from the boys-turned-men’s point of view. We were able to get inside their minds a bit and see how it was for them being locked up between 6-12 years. Poor Korey went in at like 16 and didn’t come out of prison (yes, they sent him to an adult prison) until he was almost 30!
One of the ways that Ava was able to tell the story so well was through music. The silence was almost deafening during the interrogation and the courtroom scenes, but that was balanced out by familiar tracks that were played during other scenes. Hearing “Watching You”, “Happy Feelings”, “Moon River” and even “Cupid” made you forget for a moment the atrocities those kids were put through. The angry tone of “Who We Be” by DMX during the fight scene reminded you that Korey’s prison sentence wasn’t a cake walk. There was intention behind every track that was chosen to be in this movie, especially the song that played during the credits, “Picture Me Rollin'”. While I couldn’t find an official soundtrack for the mini-series, I did find one that had most, if not all of the songs that were played in the episodes as well as a few others.
Take a listen below, and give the show a chance if you’re strong enough to do so.