Flashback
‘Brown Sugar’ Was More Than a Love Story. It’s an Ode to Black Feminism.
The film, featuring Sanaa Lathan, gifted us a woman coming into her own as a writer, steeped in the womanist tradition
When did you fall in love with hip-hop?
“Simplicity provides a fine line between elegance and plainness,” Dre Ellis recites as he reclines on Sidney Shaw’s couch. Sid is shocked that someone, in particular, Dre, has read and memorized her words. It’s the moment where many viewers of Rick Famuyiwa’s classic rom-com Brown Sugar fall in love with Dre — including me. More importantly, it’s the moment when Sid realizes what is missing in her relationship with Kelby, her fiancé: She isn’t being read.
It would be easy to dismiss Brown Sugar, starring Sanaa Lathan as Sid and Taye Diggs as Dre, as your run-of-the-mill rom-com. Released in 2002, the film follows two childhood friends who unite through their love of hip-hop and accidentally fall in love. And ruin 1.5 marriages in the process. Truth be told, that was enough for me. However, Famuyiwa creates a film that is explicitly designed to be visual hip-hop through Sid’s love letter, which also implicitly ties her to legacies of womanism, hip-hop feminism, and Black feminist love practices…
