XBox Developing 1990s Music Series Based On
Rapper Nas’ Life
EXCLUSIVE: As Nas marks
the 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking debut
album Illmatic,
a half-hour series project loosely based on his life as a
hip hop artist in the 1990s is getting off the ground with
a deal at XBox Entertainment
Studios.
Titled Street Dreams, the
project, from Jamie Patricof and Lynette Howell’s
Electric City Entertainment (The
Place Beyond The Pines), is
set in the 1990s in Long Island City’s Queensbridge
housing complex, where Nas grew up, and takes a look at
music, family and the
trials
and tribulations of the rap game. Street
Dreams is being
written/directed by Jonathan Levine, who also grew up in
New York, spending his formative years in the 1990s. New
York in the 90s was the backdrop for his coming of age
feature The
Wackness, winner
of the Audience Award at the 2008 Sundance Film
Festival. Street
Dreams is now
being developed, with Nas involved in the writing and
music. His manager, Anthony Seleh, executive produces with
Patricof, Howell and Levine. Patricof and Howell recently developed bodybuilding
half-hour Muscle for
HBO. Xbox has been actively buying scripted projects
though it is yet to launch its first series. It
also has in the works a pro skaters comedy
series from
writer Ian Edelman.
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