| Drop the Beat | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Drama |
| Written by | Noel S. Baker Vance Chapman |
| Directed by | Paul Fox Daniel Grou |
| Starring | Mark Taylor Merwin Mondesir Ingrid Veninger Michie Mee |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 26 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | Janis Lundman Adrienne Mitchell Suzanne Chapman |
| Producer | Susan Alexander |
| Cinematography | Jérôme Sabourin |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production company | Back Alley Film Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBC Television |
| Release | February 7, 2000 – April 9, 2001 |
| Infobox instructions (only shown in preview) | |
Drop the Beat is a Canadian television series produced by Back Alley Film Productions that aired on CBC Television in 2000 and 2001.[1] A short-run dramatic series, the show was one of the first television series in the world centred around hip hop music and culture.[1]
A spinoff of the earlier CBC teen drama series Straight Up,[2] the show starred Mark Taylor as Jeff and Merwin Mondesir as Dennis, the hosts of a hip hop show on CIBJ-FM, a fictional campus radio station in Toronto, Ontario.[3] Michie Mee also starred as Divine, a rapper who was part of Jeff and Dennis' crew, and Ingrid Veninger played the station manager. The supporting cast also included Arlene Duncan, Vanessa Ford, Jennifer Baxter, Jason Harrow, Shamann Williams and Omari Forrester.
The use of a campus radio station was a deliberate reflection of Canadian reality — until Toronto's Flow 93.5 hit the airwaves in early 2001, Canada did not have any radio stations dedicated specifically to urban music.