Marvel's unbreakable hero,
Luke Cage, debuted in his self-titled show on Netflix today, accompanied by rave reviews and positive reception from fans. The series has long been established as a love letter to Harlem and hip hop, along with acknowledging the character's comic book roots.
When asked by
CBR at the show's red carpet premiere what the most important takeaway for audiences was, showrunner Cheo Coker emphasized the feeling of community.
"Community power. The fact that people have the opportunity to be heroes amongst themselves. Because what Luke Cage does is he’s reluctant about being a hero, but then once he does take the community on his back, he changes things for the better. But, at the same time, because we are kind of telling a Western story, he has to deal with his past. He has to deal with his connection to his past. He’s really trying his best to get along, but at the same time he has obstacles. It’s really classic storytelling, but because of the music and because of the twists we have, it’s just really a fun way to go about things."
Hip hop plays an incredibly important role on the series, in both obvious and subtle ways. One of the small things some fans might not know is that each episode is titled after songs by East Coast hip hop duo Gang Starr. Coker admitted that he was nervous in proposing this angle to Marvel, but felt that it was important in creating an arc for the season.
"When I pitched the show, I didn’t want to just pitch one story, I wanted to pitch an arc. And so, I kinda used an old trick from my hip-hop journalism days where when you were trying to title an article, you would take a song and use that as kind of like a cover line or a way to title your article. Gang Starr songs resonated with power in terms of the titles, and also Shonda Rhimes — because I’m a huge “Grey’s Anatomy” fan — also, each episode is named after a popular song. And so it was kind of a playful way to tell a story. And then it was interesting because when you take the title, you can extrapolate and it fits a certain theme."
Luke Cage is now streaming on Netflix. How many episodes have you watched so far?
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