Concrete Cowboy

It was only about eight years ago that popular media began to really reckon with Hollywood’s whitewashing of American cowfolk. After the original 1960 version of The Magnificent Seven by John Sturges, a 2016 adaptation recast its heroes in a way that better represented historical reality. Other attempts, such as those by Tarantino (Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight) grapple with such issues—without quite letting go of the narrative conventions that made the Western genre racially problematic to begin with. Concrete Cowboy, co-written and directed by Ricky Staub and featuring Idris Elba, not only stands to further correct the aforementioned fictions, but also presents a compelling story in its own right.

It takes all of five seconds in the trailer for us to hear (much more clearly than see) what makes this a cowboy tale. As the teenage protagonist Cole (Caleb McLaughlin, Stranger Things) astutely puts it, “there’s a horse—in your house.” About twenty seconds in, the soundtrack begins with the nigh-requisite-for-Westerns: jangling guitar. The Black Pumas song “Colors” (2019) features heavily in this trailer; it’s a laid-back piece of psychedelic soul with an arrangement that persists and builds throughout.

“I woke up to the morning sky first,” Black Pumas singer Eric Burton intones against a title card emphasizing the film is “based on the real life Fletcher Street cowboys”—a community that continues in North Philadelphia to this day. Even some of the current, real Fletcher Street cowboys are set to feature in the film. As the scenes trade between in-film dialogue and lyrical content, the latter appears to be visually cut to match. “When I get up off this ground,” Burton sings as we see Cole struggling with horse manure. Notice the subtle cut at 0:57, as the wheeling motorcycle becomes a whinnying horse, with a sound bridge to match.

Moving into the second minute, the instrumentation picks up a little to match the dramatic tensions of the plot, with moving bass lines and organ. Notice again at 1:53 as there’s a brief clip of dancing that seems to line up well with the beat of the music. Then, a moment later at 1:55, there’s a clear synch point between the woman waving down the flag and the down beat. Like the motorcycle and horse, there are small and intentional audiovisual touches, and they succeed in their relative subtlety. The lyrics match up to the screen once again as we hear “my sisters and my brothers / see ‘em like no other,” set against images of neighbours hugging and embracing. There is clearly an air of support and resistance happening against the looming threat of the police banning their horses, in part as a result of gentrification.

Although there’s clearly some family drama, as the narrative in part focuses on Cole’s coming of age, overall the trailer comes off with a feeling of hopefulness. It’s a slice of life, and the aforementioned steadily building, uninterrupted arrangement by the Black Pumas sturdily reinforces this feeling.

Concrete Cowboy is now available on Netflix.

— Curtis Perry