The movies that make The LOX cry: “I shed a tear every time”
The LOX have long been a crucial force representing the New York rap scene, but, beyond hip-hop, group members Sheek Louch, Styles P and Jadakiss all have other interests, too.
During an interview with Billboard in 2020, the group was asked about a variety of different subjects—including the films that made them emotional. They were each asked to comment on the songs and movies that made them cry, with each man offering up a different answer.
Sheek went first, highlighting the 1989 epic historical war drama Glory, which follows one of the Union Army’s first African-American regiments during the Civil War, and the 2002 crime drama John Q, which is about a man who creates a hostage situation at an emergency room so that his son can get a heart transplant. Both films, incidentally, star Denzel Washington.
“Glory, or one of those slave kinds of movies,” Sheek said. “Or John Q when he was fighting for his son, ’cause you always place yourself in those scenes.” He didn’t have an answer for a song that makes him cry.
Styles P pointed towards Marvin Gaye and his track ‘Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)’ as an example of a song that gets him to well up, but, “movie-wise,” he claimed, “I’ll cry over anything.”
“I cried when Wolverine died,” he said, presumably referencing the 2017 film Logan, which, at the time, was billed as Hugh Jackman’s last performance as the X-Man. “I cried when Tony Stark died. I was in the movie theatre fucked up. I cry.”
Styles also brought up Glory. “If I’m touched, I’ll sit there with the Glory tear, take a couple of deep breaths, and be fucked up,” he said. “Any black movies, it’s too much. I just watched some movie about the kids from Haiti. I cried the whole way through. Black people movies, you just cry. But then I’ll watch something funny to change my mood.”
Jadakiss, in that spirit, started talking about a comedy, but not only for the laughs it brought him. He also found it poignant. “Life with Martin [Lawrence] and Eddie [Murphy],” he said. “It makes me laugh, but it’s also a very sad movie when you think about it.”
Life follows Murphy and Lawrence, who play men wrongly convicted for crimes they didn’t commit and are sent to prison for life. It’s definitely a comedy movie, but the plot clearly bears a serious point that Jada was touched by.
“When you think about how long they were in jail for something that they didn’t do, and just to see that it is still going on to this day from a different aspect, that’s crazy,” he said. “Life is one of my best movies, as much as I laugh at it, I share a tear. I don’t cry like boohoo, but I do shed a tear every time, two drops down.”