Nas's Broadway 'Beat Street' Musical Assembles Creative Team — SkimNews
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- Nas, the Grammy-winning rapper, is creating new material for the production and expanding the film's original soundtrack.
- Schele Williams, director of Broadway's "The Wiz," will direct the musical adaptation.
- Kristoffer Diaz, the Pulitzer finalist behind Broadway's "Hell's Kitchen," is writing the show's book based on the MGM motion picture.
- Jason Michael Webb joins as music supervisor, arranger, and orchestrator, with Broadway credits on "Choir Boy," "MJ: The Musical," and the upcoming "Purple Rain."
- The team held a 29-hour workshop last month to develop the stage adaptation; casting and production timeline will be announced in the coming months.
- Arthur Baker and Michael Holman, producers of the original 1984 film, are returning as Broadway producers alongside Richard Fearn and Peter Bittenbender, in association with Mass Appeal.
- The original "Beat Street" soundtrack was released in two volumes, with Volume One cited as one of the first rap albums to be certified gold.
Why it matters: The assembled team pairs Broadway veterans (Williams directed 'The Wiz,' Diaz wrote 'Hell's Kitchen,' Webb scored 'MJ') with Nas and Mass Appeal to adapt a film already cited by Lin-Manuel Miranda and LL Cool J as foundational to hip-hop. Retaining original producers Baker and Holman — whose soundtrack Volume One was among the first rap albums certified gold — connects the Broadway version directly to the people who built that 1984 milestone.
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