"Brown Sugar" opens with a series of hiphop emissaries, including Method Man, Common and Big Daddy Kane, explaining how they first fell in love with their music, the recurring question put to them by music journalist Sidney (Sanaa Lathan).
Hip-hop is Sidney's lifeblood, and she takes us back to the defining moment during the 80s when she heard street MCs for the first time. This was also when she began a lifelong friendship with fellow devotee Dre (Taye Diggs), who's now working for a hiphop record label in New York.
Moving to a new job as a magazine editor in New York City, Sidney is reunited with Dre, whose idealist dreams of being a hip-hop producer are fading in the light of commercialism. Luckily he's got Sidney to put him back on track, even if their friendship makes his fiancée (Nicole Ari Parker) jealous.
Music can shape your life, there's no doubt about it, so it's a shame when "Brown Sugar" turns into "My Best Friend's Wedding". As Sidney's voiceover coos about her love for hip-hop, the action onscreen turns into a predictable romantic comedy, with Sidney and Dre realising that they might be more that just good friends after all.
Lucky that they're charming and good looking enough to carry it off. Even New York is an idealistic place where dreams come true and hip-hop's commercialisation is funny - in the form of the HipHop Dalmatians, who've restyled Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson's "The Girl is Mine" as "The Ho is Mine". It's quite catchy, actually.
A game cast, including excellent support from Queen Latifah and Mos Def, buoy the film with lots of good laughs and some genial romance. You'll come out smiling, even if you still don't know who Method Man is.
Brown Sugar (2003)
