How much of The Drop: A Snowfall Saga is a true story?
The most real thing in The Drop may be its theme song, which carries a Nipsey Hussle verse nobody had heard before.
The Drop: A Snowfall Saga premiered on FX and Hulu on September 8, and its eight-episode first season ends October 27 with "Hercules." Malcolm Spellman created it as a follow-up to Snowfall, John Singleton's drama about the crack epidemic in 1980s South Los Angeles. Gail Bean and Isaiah John return as Wanda Bell and Leon Simmons, and the story moves to 1990, as West Coast rap starts to break into the mainstream.
The short answer
The era is real. The people aren't. Here's how it splits:
- Real — South Los Angeles at the start of the '90s, still living with what crack did to it; escalating gang warfare; record labels moving to profit from hip-hop.
- Invented — every main character: Wanda, Leon, the Kinsey family, the rapper Artillery, and Darryl "DG" Grant, the former dealer who now runs a record label.
Wanda and Leon
Both come from Snowfall, which mixed fictional characters with real history: the crack epidemic and the CIA's ties to cocaine trafficking by the Nicaraguan Contras. Its central figure, the dealer Franklin Saint, was invented, and so were Wanda and Leon.
Snowfall ended with them married and living in Accra, and with Leon back in South Central alone to start a free legal clinic. The Drop picks up from there. Leon runs the clinic, and Wanda, in recovery after years of addiction, puts everything into a group of young rappers, starting with her cousin Lamar, played by Asante Blackk.
Is Artillery a real rapper?
No. FX and Spellman haven't named any musician as the basis for Artillery, the volatile Bloods-affiliated rapper played by Simmie "Buddy" Sims III. In the show, he writes a song about killing a white police officer, and police come to his house and beat everyone inside.
The history it echoes is real, though the show doesn't point to it:
- 1988 — N.W.A released Straight Outta Compton, with "Fuck tha Police" on it.
- August 1989 — the FBI sent a letter to N.W.A's label, Priority Records, criticizing the group's anti-police lyrics.
Buddy himself is the real thing. He grew up in Compton, signed with Pharrell Williams' Star Trak Entertainment as a teenager, and has worked with Kendrick Lamar and Chance the Rapper.
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The parts that are real
A few pieces of the show come straight from real life:
- The theme song — "LA Theme Song" is a posthumous Nipsey Hussle release, recorded for his 2018 single "Dedication." The version with his previously unheard verse arrived in episode 2, with the blessing of his brother, Blacc Sam.
- The streets — Skipp Townsend, who spent more than 27 years associated with the Bloods, consulted on the series.
For the record: Nipsey Hussle was killed on March 31, 2019. John Singleton died four weeks later.
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