The multi-talented Baz Luhrmann and a team of collaborators -- Oscar-winner Catherine Martin, legendary MC Nas, Grandmaster Flash, Pulitzer-winning playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, and hip-hop historian Nelson George -- have created a music-driven drama that documents the emergence of a new art form. Set in the late 1970s, when New York was at the brink of bankruptcy and disco was dying out, the rise of hip-hop is told through the lives, art, music and dance of a group of young people in the South Bronx.