You guys did a good job with that. You feel it in the smallest of details like the scene where Kerst watches Miami’s drug war on the news, while his mom binge-watches QVC.

Bishop: For the party scene, it was hard not to put down the camera and want to join the party. It's really like time travel.

Yanes: We spent a good amount of time in pre-production. My first mission was to go on Ebay and I just basically started collecting things that were vintage like the Michael Jordan t-shirt. I researched the year it came out just to be sure. Then we went vintage store hunting all over Miami and Ft. Lauderdale.

Bishop: It was extensive. I dug in old yearbooks. I was sending him and wardrobe pictures of hairstyles and outfits so no one can say, "That's not right!"

Another thing that was accurate was the actual art (graffiti)…

Yanes: The art director of the film was a part of a graffiti group back in the day. They were all super known and really big in that era. So we had them do all the art for the film.

Bishop: Jose was the one who did the art for Jeffery Wahlberg’s character, he has a style where he takes buffed walls and makes a style out of buffed walls. While the police are thinking that they're buffing our stuff, he's making art on what they're buffing.

Yanes: Jel and Scott “Rage” Johnson are the two artists and Jose was the art director. He also contributed a bunch of home sequence footage in the credits.

It seemed like Hip-Hop helped breathe life into the film.

Yanes: For me, Hip-Hop saved my life. I grew up in a neighborhood that was not great at all. Everyone we knew, including my brother, was in gangs. It was around the era when it was the murder capital of the world.

Bishop: It was the "stare down." If someone stared you down, you had to fight—unless you made a deal. It was a lot of gang violence. They were everywhere.

Yanes: What was interesting was that the more you were an artist and involved in hip-hop, the gangs wouldn't f*ck with you. In a way, you gained respect from the gangs. If you weren't into that stuff (breaking, graffiti, rapping) you would get clowned or robbed. For me, that saved us and we loved every aspect of it.

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