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House Party 2 can’t top the original

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Robin Harris and John Witherspoon left a void

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and Kid ’N Play never got the signature showcase fans wanted

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But revisiting it, we found a sequel with real heart:

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tough-love mentors,

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Queen Latifah at her most powerful,

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and a movie full of gems many fans never knew were missing from the soundtrack album.

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Here is our original review from 2024.

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Welcome to Hip Hop Movie Club.

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House Party 2.

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Kid is now in college, backed by a scholarship provided by his community, which has rallied around him following the untimely death of Pops.

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Play prioritizes his rap career

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and mis-appropriates

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Kid's money.

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Kid navigates his financial woes and relationship with Sidney while trying to make Pops and his community proud.

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The potential solution?

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Why, a pajama jammie jam, of course.

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Of course.

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That's the solution to everything.

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That's always the answer.

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It’s always the answer.

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And it was actually, it was an answer to our plans at Rider as well.

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I used to put on pajama Jammie Jams in the Poyda apartment.

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Yeah, so the pajama jammie jam was, it was interesting and entertaining for some parts.

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There were a couple of characters in the movie that I actually thought they gave me some redeeming qualities.

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One was Professor Sinclair, who was played by Georg Stanford Brown, and Mr. Lee’s character, who was played by Tony Burton.

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These two characters really touched me in the movie.

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Trying to fill that void that was left without Pops.

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or John Witherspoon's character, so we have some positivity in the movie.

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Professor Sinclair actually reminds me a lot of my father and his mannerisms.

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So that was the first thing I noticed.

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But he was tough on Kid and he wanted him to realize his full potential and not sell himself short.

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I also love that he was supportive of the knowledge, is power, rally, and even spoke at that as well.

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Like shows that he cared about the students and enhancing their education.

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At the end of the movie, we found out that there was still a financial gap left with Kid's funding.

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He offered to give him a job as a student assistant, to try to help him out.

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Also the statement that he made to Kid, when Kid said he would come back to school, he said, yeah, there's a lot of brothers and sisters that say they're

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gonna return, but they never do.

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And that always hits me hard because I know a few people that went to school at Rider that had a similar situation and they never returned.

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So that part always hits me.

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But to go to Mr.

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Lee's character, he's the character that runs the cafeteria like a branch of the military.

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And he even sports a few medals on his jacket.

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He's also tough, but also challenges Kid to reach his full potential as well.

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And he comes across as like a father figure type and he was visibly hurt.

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when he had dismissed Kid from working in the cafeteria because he was no longer a student.

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Like after he was really tough, I was like, you gotta, you're no longer a student.

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And he took his pen and Kid walked away.

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He just, you could see the sigh on his face like, man, I'm about to lose another one.

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And that showed that he actually cared for the workers even though he was tough with them.

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He was like, he was trying to get them to prepare for the real world.

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So I do appreciate that a lot.

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And even after, he found out that Kid had the party.

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He was still mad, but at the same time, you know, you could still see that he cared about him.

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So those two characters struck me, you know, despite the shortcomings of comparing this one to the other one.

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Sequels are always hard and no, it doesn't match the original, but I still wound up enjoying the film and talk about that later.

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yeah, there's a balance between doing fan service, like things like the broken toilet and chill, bumping the table.

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And then there's like.

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not doing anything original to push the thing forward.

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like you said, Boogie, there's some characters that were really good to watch, like Professor Sinclair and like Mr.

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like you said, Boogie, there's some characters that were really good to watch, Professor Sinclair and like Mr.

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Lee.

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It's hard to replace Robin Harris with even these two guys who are

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big time on their own.

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Other than the little flashbacks they had of Robin Harris, like in the picture frame,

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speaking to Kid, they left a huge void in this film.

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Like, it was palpable.

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My family had watched it, they came to the screening that we had, and almost everyone to a person was like,

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Those two were hysterical.

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They didn't realize how funny they were because they weren't familiar with all of their works.

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And so, rest in peace to both of them, pure legends.

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And again, it's hard to replicate.

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They brought in Whoopi Goldberg as like, you know, in the dream sequence, as like a haunting spirit at the beginning and at the end.

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But I think they kind of left some of her talents on the table as well.

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So I guess they tried to kind of fill the void, but it didn't really work for me, so to speak.

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Had she been like

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not in the dream sequences, but actually been like an actual professor that he took, whose class courses that he was taking.

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And we can see her roll off a little, some little wisecracks in the classroom or something like that.

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I think it would have been a little more impactful, but

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yeah, definitely still couldn't fill that void, but it would have been a little more

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leaning towards some of the comedic.

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one liners that we got from Robin Harris and John Witherspoon.

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She was a little underutilized.

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The other part about this void

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is that the consequences in the original film about Kid

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sneaking out of the house,

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that was weighing in the back of everyone's mind.

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He's going to get whooping when he gets home.

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Yeah.

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But the consequences in this are different for Kid.

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He's not going to get corporal punishment, but he's going to get kicked out of school and his money got stolen.

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And so that hits differently than having Robin Harris, who's really funny, about to whoop his ass.

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Yeah.

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And so it's different and even two actors like Georg Stanford Brown and Tony Burton, who I really remember as the corner man in Rocky.

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Yes, Throw in the towel!

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And so it's hard to replace Robin Harris with even those two guys.

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And more than that, Dean Kramer and all these other people that hold Kid's fate in their hands.

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It's just hard to replace both the comedic part and the consequences part.

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Because he gets out of school like, oh well, he has to go back home.

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But it's just different.

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Yeah.

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mean, he didn't want to let his community down.

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He didn't want to let his late father down.

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yeah, but yeah, right.

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Exactly.

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Right.

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of funny when Robin Harris is doing it.

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those one -liners are some of the most quotable parts of the original house party, like public enema, follow the drip, follow the drip, all these other things.

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Like that's what sticks in your head.

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Just like in Friday, it's like Bye Felicia.

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It's like a memorable, repeatable phrase that lives on.

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And we didn't really get that in this film.

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So that's too hard to replace for sure.

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We didn't mention quite yet, Queen Latifah.

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She comes on the scene, brings a conscious element,

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shows off her rapping chops as Zora.

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Gotta turn to you Boogie, because you are Queen Latifah's number one fan, and tell us

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about how she shined in this movie.

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Yeah, so yeah, for everybody who's been a constant listener, you know, I'm such a fan of Queen Latifah from the same hometown.

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For those who don't know, now you know.

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But her portrayal as Zora, it was so on brand with her image at that time.

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Like she was strong and positive.

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She provided a good balance to the party happy

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character of Sidney from the first original movie, who wanted to party.

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She was a good balance and she also provided sort of like a mentorship as an older student who was her roommate.

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She also is good at keeping the sex crazed Kid in check because Kid was ready to say, we're in school now.

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Hey, I can come over any time, any place.

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And Zora was like, no, not having it.

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Nope, not, nope.

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I do like the scene that the Knowledge is Power rally

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that they had, regarding Professor Sinclair, which was a rally

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to protest the cutting the funds

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for ethnic studies.

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And in that scene, we see her sport a signature headpiece

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and it's like, there we go.

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That's the queen I'm talking about.

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And in that scene, she kicks a rhyme called Knowledge is Power,

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shows her conscious rap

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skills on display there.

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And throughout the movie, she also tries to keep Miles at bay as well when she realized that Sidney starts to like him.

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And she kind of brings Sid back down to earth by proposing a question to Sid that,

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maybe she needs to think about what she really wants out of life and in her relation

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to Kid And that even though Miles is a different person than Kid, maybe he's not better.

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She wants her to find her own identity.

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I do like how she proposed that to Sidney when they were getting ready to go to the pajama jammie jam.

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And you see Sidney kind of dressed like her.

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And she's like, who are you going to the party as?

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She's like, I'm going as Zora.

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I hope to see Sidney there.

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You don't have to be me to be a strong person.

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You can be your own individual self and represent yourself the way you want and still get the respect that you want out of everyone.

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That was good to see on screen as well.

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Kid and Play in this movie, they also dance and rap.

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but we were left wanting a little bit more.

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It wasn't that longer, elaborate dance scene or rap battle that we get in the first movie.

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I was really disappointed.

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These are stars of your movie.

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Let them let it fly.

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But they spent more time on Sidney.

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And I was just confused about that.

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Hahaha.

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Thematically, Kid was distracted because he was trying to keep tabs on Sidney, and so he couldn't really let fly with the dance routine.

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I don't know, maybe, you know, they didn't spend all their time together, so who knows how well they could pull it off right then.

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But I was like, this is the time where, like, they really rally everybody and they do this great dance routine, but you don't get that pay off.

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I wanted to see some signature moves.

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There was a lot of, they were bopping to the music, but it wasn’t the same.

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Yeah, it's like they didn't try to top the first one.

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Right!

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I mean, it is so iconic and you can't, how could you top it?

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But you didn't even try.

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Right, at least try to top it, right?

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At least try to top it.

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Do something.

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In Breakin’ 2, it just got silly.

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But in this, they could have topped it, maybe.

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Yeah.

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I don’t know.

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I was left wanting more.

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I agree.

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Maybe Play could have actually executed the jump over his own leg that he had fallen in the living room in this one.

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He perfected it.

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Oh man. See? There you go.

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They did that.

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“Ain't Gonna Hurt Nobody” was a good choice for the track.

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They pulled it off, but like you just said, DynoWright, like Kid was distracted.

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So he was very tentative up there and he was not really into it.

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And it kind of took away from the performance.

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They left some meat on the bone.

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The movie soundtrack, speaking of the music, it features some great old school classics, but many of which aren't on the actual soundtrack album.

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So I mean, talk about a few of them that were on there in the movie, I should say, that don't really appear on the soundtrack like Chubb Rock's Treat Them Right, OPP.

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by Naughty By Nature.

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Those two are huge hits from that era and they didn't appear on the actual soundtrack.

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And then Boyz II Men's Motown Philly was played during the one chase scene.

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And I always enjoy hearing that one.

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Even one of my favorite, one of my favorite songs of all time appears in this movie.

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Optimistic by Sounds of Blackness.

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Like I absolutely love that song.

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Like I play it a lot.

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It's in some of my mixes that I've made and it's in the movie, but yeah, it's not on the soundtrack.

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Back then it was a huge hit.

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“I Don't Know What You Come to Do” by Tony! Toni! Toné!

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Interesting fact about that song.

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That part, that's actually from a gospel song.

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I came to stomp my feet, that's from a gospel song.

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Yes.

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Yes, it is definitely from a gospel song.

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And I love the fact that we actually do get to see, the cameo of Tony! Toni! Toné! in the movie singing that, we mentioned the “Ain’t Gonna Hurt Nobody”

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and “Yo Baby, Yo” by Ralph Tresvant. He had a great solo run.

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New Edition front man and we get to see a cameo of him in the movie as well.

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But the one song that did resonate with me though, is “It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” performed by the Flex.

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classic classic classic song. The first time I heard that song was in “Cooley High”, the movie “Cooley High”. Which interesting that was from before I was even born

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1975 I've watched that movie so many times as well and that song was performed by G.C. Cameron. Interesting enough Boyz II Men

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recorded the song as well on their “Cooleyhighharmony” album released in 1991.

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Yeah, so I admit to the audience here, I thought that was original Boyz II Men song, but I did know that the name of the album was Cooleyhighharmony, which was an amazing album.

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I never put two and two together or recalled that specific song from Cooley High.

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So great knowledge there, Boogie, as usual.

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I did notice one thing.

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Did you notice the name of the school?

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Mm

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I didn't see it.

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Or the dorm.

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Was the dorm called Trump or something?

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No, the school was Harris.

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Harris?

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Harris University.

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So Harris.

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Harris was University, right?

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and then Trump Hall.

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it was funny because I saw two versions of the university name.

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Like when he was in a bookstore, I saw Harris University bookstore.

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But when he was talking to Dean, was it Dean Kramer?

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His seal on his desk said Harrison University.

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Harrison.

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Yeah.

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That's like a little Easter egg.

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like.

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So think they probably did that as a tribute to Robin Harris, but at one point they put Harrison at some point.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I think they definitely did.

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But it was like, which one is it?

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Is it Harris University or Harrison University?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Our brothers from Full Force, again, they were the enforcers.

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They end up being campus security.

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In the dream sequence, they were the deans of discipline, that's what Whoopi Goldberg calls them, right?

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So they still play the heavies, comic relief.

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Let's go around the room and rate this in terms of bring that funky flick back

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or leave it in the vault.

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Boogie, House Party 2, bring that funky flick back or leave it in the vault.

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Despite the fact that it doesn't hold up to the original, I definitely bring that funky flick back.

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I watch it a lot.

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It's still funny to me, it's still definitely a decent watch.

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DynoWright?

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It's still worth watching, so I will bring this funky flick back.

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I am of the same vein.

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I will bring this funky flick back despite its flaws.

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Yeah, I'll even tolerate House Party 3.

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But after that...

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He's out.

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No mas!

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Hip -hop movie club is produced by your HHMC's JB Boogie and Dyno Wright.

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Theme music by Boogie.

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I'm Dyno Wright, podcaster, filmmaker, longtime hip hop fan, and it'll cost more than Lee Majors to fix MCs after I kicks my flavor.

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I'm JB, 80s and 90s nostalgia junkie, longtime hip hop fan, and I've got more rhymes and I've got gray hairs.

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And that's a lot because I've got my share.

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I’m boogie, a DJ, long time hip hop fan.

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And I remember seeing this movie on a date while I was in high school.

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Remember, don't hate, pulsate.

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We'll see.

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Hahahaha

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you

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You