This article is about the Paramount+ On the Come Up movie ending and will contain spoilers.
Bri (Jamila Grey) lives in the shadow of her deceased father, a legendary figure in the Garden Heights area. She wears her chain every day, a memory of a great local rapper who died too young. Bri also carries the memory of her mother, Jay (Sanaa Lathan), leaving her alone and controlled by her heroin use. Now his mother is clean but struggling to find work because no one wants to hire a junky. Jay is behind on his rent. The water is now as cold as a merciless world. And finally, the electricity is cut off. What’s a sixteen-year-old high school student supposed to do?
Well, she sells candy at her local high school. Bri sells Twix for two bucks and reluctantly takes money from her high school crush, Malik (Michael Cooper, Jr.) As he picks up the package of Skittles and she gets lost in his big smile, two official school security guards demand to see what’s in his bag. The taller of the two grabs little Bri, snatches the bag from her hands and slams her on the hard cement floor as if he just smelled what The Rock was up to. It was a violent and clear violation of overbreadth. This results in Bri being suspended by the yuppy school principal for a week.
There is an invisible advantage. After being humiliated in a battle at The Ring, a local establishment that hosts rap battles in Garden Heights, the week off gives Bri time to redeem herself. With the help of her Aunt Pooh (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), she wins a battle and gets enough money to help pay some of her mother’s bills. She also meets Supreme (method man), a manager who makes artists pay, and Pooh is intimidated by him. Eventually, even though Pooh is family, Bri dumps her for Supreme. He basically tells her that she has to record a song that the kids will buy to scare their parents. So she does it on the spot with a song called On the way upwhich is not his experience but will earn him the money his family badly needs.
Paramount + On the Come Up Movie Ending Explained
The track is a huge hit, but Bri is starting to feel the fallout. Malik tells her in so many words that she’s sold herself, and that’s not her authentic self. When Bri talks about guns and “crowns” it’s controversial, she’s a drug dealer and gangster. A protest to end the school’s responsibility for what happened to him turned into a ‘riot’ with children fleeing after a security guard was hit with a glass bottle. Some gang members confront Bri, beat her and Malik, and they take her father’s chain. This causes Pooh to seek revenge, but she is shot and while she survives, she goes to jail.
Bri then decides to make some changes. She realizes that she is not acting like herself. Bri walks away from Supreme after her track is embellished by a local radio host named Hype (Mike Epps), the young woman realizes she’s let a world lock her into a stereotype she doesn’t want anything about have to do. The final rap battle proves it, as Supreme has his infamous Millz (Lil Yachty) at the Battle of Garden Heights. Bri basically breaks Millz down as a sellout. He then responds by breaking down Bri on how she grew up and her experiences. How does Bri react? She won’t even let the star finish his tour, destroying him by pointing out that his lyrics are inauthentic and a by-product of a music industry he sold himself for.
Bri is mobbed by her family and held on their shoulders, as she comes to terms with finding her authentic voice.
READ – will there be a sequel to On the Come Up?
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READ – On the Come Up movie review.
READ – everything we know about On the Come Up.
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On the Come Up Post Ending Explained – Will Bri Find Her Authentic Voice? first appeared on Ready Steady Cut.
