Poetic Justice, 1993
The great John Singleton understood how to speak to the culture’s heart. It was that level of genius that had him tap the illustrious Janet Jackson to play a hood jawn from South Central and a newly popping Tupac Shakur to be her love interest. Poetic Justice made the legendary pop star, just like us and helped us fall in love with her in a brand new way. I mean … she was up there making out with two of the rappers that all of us were either in love with and wished that we were. Justice, the “Pleasure Principle” singer, was popping in them LA streets.
Classic moments in the movie showed A Tribe Called Quest lead emcee, Q Tip as her man, a young and healthy Maia Campbell as Pac’s relative, and Lucky (the All Eyez on Me rapper) as everyone’s cousin at a random family reunion. We won’t even go into Regina King and Joe Torry’s epic performances that helped the movie become the memorable film that still is as dope as it was the first time we saw it.