Set in the South Bronx, the film follows the lives of a pair of brothers and their group of friends, all of whom are devoted to various elements of early hip hop culture, including breakdancing, DJing and graffiti.

In the South Bronx, New York City, budding disc jockey and MC Kenny "Double K" Kirkland is hired as a featured DJ at a house party at an abandoned building, accompanied by his best friend Ramon Franco, a graffiti artist known by his tag "Ramo", and his friend/manager Chollie Wilson.

During an ensuing breakdance battle between the Breakers and Bronx Rockers, Tracy notices Lee's performance, inviting him to audition for a dancing television show.

Startled by rival graffiti artist Spit, a shadowy and taciturn hooded street punk who has been defacing Ramon's artwork and is tagging a freshly painted wall, the group departs.

Ramon tells his friends he plans to move Carmen and the baby into a vacant apartment upstairs, and eventually obtains employment at a hardware store.

In the ensuing scuffle in the subway tunnels, Spit sprays paint in Ramon's eyes and both tussle on the roadbed before rolling onto the electrified third rail, which fatally electrocutes both instantly.

Grandmaster Melle Mel & the Furious Five assist him along with a Bronx gospel choir, backed by the City College Dancers and a group of twenty-five breakdancers.

The movie was inspired by an original story, "The Perfect Beat", by journalist Steven Hager, who sold the idea to producer Harry Belafonte.

Most visibly, the antagonist, Spit, in Beat Street was lifted from the real-life graffiti artist CAP MPC, who was portrayed in Style Wars.

Several scenes were shot inside the city's subway system, both onboard trains and in stations, notably Hoyt-Schermerhorn Streets, 57th Street-Sixth Avenue and Fresh Pond Road.

There are several performances in the movie, notably from established early hip hop groups, Grandmaster Melle Mel & the Furious Five, Doug E. Fresh, Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force and the Treacherous Three.

The musical performance of Kool Moe Dee stands as one of the few media appearances he has ever made without his trademark sunglasses (a style he had not yet adopted at the time).

This moment tends to diminish the significance of women in early hip hop performance as if by 1984 female emcees were already exceptional to a musical genre that was still emerging and developing.

Though not featured on the album, there were also appearances by rapper Richard Lee Sisco and singers Bernard Fowler and Brenda K. Starr, known as the Queen of freestyle who later became a Latin artist.

[8] Beat Street was of particular importance in socialist East Germany, since its release was intended to illustrate the evils of capitalism (poverty, racial segregation) for young audiences.