On ‘Money & Violence’ And The Importance Of The Black Narrative
51 mins ago - By Bossip Staff
YouTube Show Offers Fresh Perspective On Black Street Experience
Money & Violence is a
low-budget Youtube drama about stick-up kids and drug dealers in New York City. And it’s the most talked-about non-
Empire show in
the mystical world of Black Twitter. Every episode since its August debut has amassed at least half a million views and it’s as addicting as the white stuff the corner boys are pushing. On its surface,
M&V is a typical movie about drugs and guns in the Black community. At first glance, the show is something the Black intellectual community would scoff at as detrimental for us to consume. But
Money & Violence is much more. The YouTube hit is a story about trust, friendship and moral ambiguity. It only takes an episode to get drawn into the moral dilemmas of the main characters. They murder and steal but they live by codes. And they honor them with their lives.
What also makes the show unique is that it’s a show devoid of White people. Anywhere. While
The Wire is arguably the most realistic visual of an urban mostly-Black drug trade, it’s a story that’s still told under the narrative of a White power structure.
The Wire explained all of the political and socio-economic functions that created the Baltimore projects – and it did so brilliantly.
M&V functions on a micro level. Yes, we know or at least have a vague understanding of the political decisions that led Miz and his crew to rob and sell drugs for a living, but this isn’t about that. It’s about how the characters navigate their terrain, surviving by any means.
M&V is insulated Blackness. It’s a Black experience independent of White characters, White saviors and White power. There’s nothing like it on television. For as great as
Black-ish is, it’s a show about maintaining Blackness in a wholly White world.
Empire comes close but it’s so over-the-top that it’s insane to consider it even remotely realistic. These shows are important, but
M&V is something else entirely.
By the end of
M&V’s first season, I’m emotionally invested in the main characters’ tragedies. The characters are products of their environments, bad decisions and quests for power.
M&V’s writer-director, Moetivation, said he plucked stories from his and his friends’ personal experiences and hired acquaintances to act out the scenes. The language is authentic, so much so that it’s actually helped me understand half the things rappers say when they’re talking about street life. Most importantly, the show demonstrates the importance and placement of Black narratives in the American creative process.
The reason
Money & Violence is so compelling is that it tells a story that no one has ever broached from such an intimate perspective. There are details about the characters’ lifestyles that can only come from those who lived it. What’s lost is that these stories are all across America. Every corner or public school or business has a story about Blackness that’s ignored because the storytellers aren’t allowed in the discussion about America. Watch
Fruitvale Station again; it didn’t take an execution-style murder to make his story worth telling.
Black inclusion in America’s creative consciousness isn’t new. However, Black stories told by Black people, executed by Black people and done in a way that’s unimpeachably true are all too rare. Moe’s story of street corner ethics is just as needed as Whitley’s story of discovering her blackness on a HBCU campus. We need
Money & Violence just as much as we need
A Different World. These stories make up the oeuvre of the Black experience. And if we don’t tell them, who will?
Contrast M&V to Noisey’s documentary on, well, anything Black. Noisey treats Blackness like a ride at Six Flags, a scary adrenaline rush that they want to enjoy as long as they know they’ll eventually get off and go back to their glorious whiteness. Blackness is treated as a spectacle, with the hipster-y White guy gazing in awe as trap rapper du jour metaphorically tap dances with his favorite gun. Blackness has no redeemable quality for Noisey’s documentaries. And for the longest time, these voyeurs have controlled the Black narrative, essentially creating propaganda films for any neighborhood watch racist who needs a frame of reference when he sees a Black teen in a hood.
Money & Violence is so much more. The show isn’t afraid to admit that, yes, there are Black men in this world who will rob you or carry guns wherever they go. They’re alive. But they are more nuanced, more
human with real stresses, cares and regrets that Noisey doesn’t care to explore.
Money & Violence shows how we can control our own narratives. How, regardless what a television network, Oscar Academy or blogger says, our voices and, by default, lives matter.
Really good write up in regards to the shows message. I highlighted the bold for those who see shows like Noisey and glorify its existence when all it glorifies is propoganda for racists and media trolls like the guy who interviews the artists.
he mentioned that in the Breakfast Club interview they did.
