Deborah Jane hits society’s core with Strange Fruit: The Hip Hopera
It’s evident that Deborah Jane’s first play, The Hip Hopera which played to a sold out crowd while she was a junior at Stanford University led her to a life changing calling. While attending USC School of Cinematic Arts, she began turning The Hip Hopera into a screen play now called Strange Fruit: The Hip Hopera...
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"A GRIPPING HIP-HOP MUSICAL OF RACIAL RECONCILIATION"
SYNOPSIS
Imagine a powerful black woman in the 21st century being thrust back into the 1800s as a slave with only one chance to escape back to her reality.
This is the story of LaShelle Robinson, a spit-fire Wall Street broker, who travels back in time to rescue her ancestor, Inka, from a lynching – all to lift the curse off her white fiancé, Todd Decatur, the love of her life.
MISSION
We are in the middle of a social revolution. America faces a racial reckoning that is now exploding through civil unrest. Strange Fruit: The Hip-hopera meets the moment. The urgent mission of our film is to bring healing, unity and racial reconciliation to our deeply divided nation through a powerful cinematic voice for social justice.
The theme of Strange Fruit is the Ghanaian proverb Sankofa - in order to go forward, one must go back. If America truly wants to progress as a people and a nation, we must go back in time and heal a past steeped in radical prejudice. This is the first step toward building a better future for racial equality.
Strange Fruit takes us on this journey through our revolutionary female characters, LaShelle and her ancestor Inka, who powerfully collide across time. Originally produced as an award-winning play at Stanford University, Strange Fruit is now a dynamic hip-hop musical film that is a production of the House of Deborah Jane Studios.
As a kid, I was pretty desperate to discover my roots and express my imagination – which I did through literature, hip-hop and musicals. I remember when my father took me to see Les Miserables on Broadway. I was enthralled! I knew immediately I wanted to create a musical of that caliber that dramatized the social issues of my people."
Deborah Jane Burke, Screenwriter & Executive Producer
WHY A HIP-HOP
MUSICAL?
