Top Boy originally hit our TV screens in 2011 on Channel 4, but was cancelled at the end of the second series in 2013. In an article in The Independent Top Boy creator Ronan Bennett said that the cancellation, “felt like a slap in the face to the community it was representing.”
Top Boy is about gang life in Hackney East London, and sheds light on the world of drugs, and the pressure to make money out of selling them. The show has managed to highlight the nitty-gritty of living in places such as London Fields and the Summerhouse Estate. “We show a community that just doesn’t get shown on television,” says Bennet in the Independent article, “where people see their lives represented on screen.”
After the show was cancelled it might have ended there. But in 2014 Canadian rapper Drake used Twitter to praise the show and Ashley Waters, who plays Dushane in Top Boy, shouted him out for showing that “the rest of the world” was, “learning about #UK street culture.” Three years later Netflix vice president Cindy Holland could report in The Hollywood Reporter that, “Drake came to us several months ago with a passion to bring this series back to life and we’re thrilled to support the original creative team to do that.”
So what is different about the Netflix approach? Well one thing is the music. Series one only featured a couple of songs – Bugzy Malone’s Die by the Gun and AJ Tracey’s Quarterback (Secure the Bag) – and series two only really had one song: Changeling by DJ Shadow.
But with Drake as executive producer, not only is there a lot more music, but half the cast is made up of musicians. There are 28 songs spread out over the four episodes of series three, 17 of which are available on the soundtrack available on Spotify. Actor and rapper Kano who plays Sully in series three told The Radio Times that “there’s this kind of synergy with music and Top Boy, it’s another reason why it’s a great time for Top Boy, Simultaneously the music industry is thriving with a lot of new talent and just going from strength to strength in this country.”
I think the music lifts the show, as do the Netflix production values. With series three Top Boy has become a top show, and that part of East London that Ronan Bennet complained never got shown on television is now likely to be shown all over the globe.
