“Like my children, in a way”: Halle Berry has always been flattered to be the godmother of rap
Halle Berry is a performer who is easy to take for granted, given that she has been working in the industry for nearly four decades, but due to the references to her made over an entire generation of hip-hop has earned her undying fame.
It’s easy to forget that Berry became a breakout star way back when she appeared alongside Eddie Murphy in Boomerang, and managed to survive a few turkeys in order to be a consistently engaging presence in cinema.
What’s most impressive about her persistence is that she has never allowed herself to be backed into a corner when it comes to the types of roles she’s interested in playing. Berry famously became the first Black female actor to win the ‘Best Actress’ prize at the Academy Awards for her performance in the devastating drama Monster’s Ball alongside Billy Bob Thornton, but she also managed to score a recurring role in the popular X-Men franchise as the fan-favourite mutant known as Storm.
It was due to the fact that she was one of the most prominent Black actresses in Hollywood during the ‘90s, when the industry was still quite regressive, that her successes and failures were of particular importance to diverse communities.
Her name tended to come up a lot within this era of rap music, as she became shorthand for any references to a beautiful woman. While this level of fixation might have been distracting for someone like Berry, she said that she is proud of having this legacy.
“I think of these references like my children in a way,” she expressed, when pressed about which homages she had the fondest memories of, explaining, “There’s no way I could pick one. I love all these artists. I’m always flattered when any one of them include me and that they still remember me and know who I am. So to pick one would be like picking my daughter over my son. I love them all.”
Rap culture had begun to become mainstream in the ‘90s, to the point that it was accepted by Hollywood as a major box office draw, with artists like Ice Cube and Tupac Shakur becoming legitimate movie stars, and films about the Black community were both critically acclaimed and financially successful. The industry will never turn away the chance to make a profit, even if it means opening itself up to be more inclusive, which in this case was a great thing.
Berry’s name became immortalised in popular culture in the same ways that stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood had been frequently references; in the same way that an entire generation grew up to know names like James Dean, Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, and Audrey Hepburn, young rap fans were introduced to Berry and her body-of-work through the music that they listened to.
The actor has also managed to stage a minor comeback, as it was after her scene-stealing roles in the action films Kingsman: The Golden Circle and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum that she solidified her status as a capable genre star. In addition to the romantic spy comedy Union, one of the most viewed films in the history of Netflix, Berry also delivered one of her best performances ever earlier this year with the crime drama Crime 101. She certainly benefits from nostalgia, but she has also continuously put in the work.
