Carmen: A Hip Hopera 2001

Seductive aspiring actress Carmen Brown unwittingly stirs trouble wherever she goes, and her path soon crosses with Derek Hill, a Philadelphia Police Department sergeant who is engaged to Caela. At Lou’s Bar, Carmen gets into a heated clash with a jealous woman, prompting Hill’s superior, Lt. Frank Miller, to order Hill to bring Carmen to jail. Carmen makes a bold, failed bid to seduce him, yet she persuades him to swing by her apartment so she can stash her mother’s ring safely instead of letting it be stolen in jail. There, she slips into lingerie and wins him over. By morning, Hill is caught red-handed by Miller, who is revealed to be a crooked cop, and he escorts Caela along as he arrests Hill. Caela confronts Hill with a slap and a frank declaration of hatred.

In jail, Hill’s thoughts keep circling back to Carmen. She writes him a letter, and he shares his obsession with cellmates Jalil and Pockets. Meanwhile, Carmen crosses paths with the famous rapper Blaze at a nightclub called “the Spot.” Blaze hopes to bring her to Los Angeles, and he does manage to bring along her closest friends. Carmen vows to meet them in LA once Hill is released, but Hill faces a probationary year once he’s out. A heated confrontation with Miller leads to a punch, and Hill flees to Los Angeles with Carmen, who remains unaware of the disturbance he caused.

Life in Los Angeles proves tough. Carmen struggles to land an acting job, and Hill’s fugitive status makes steady work elusive. She reconnects with her best friends Rasheeda and Nikki, who are being treated like royalty by Blaze Blaze. The trio undergo tarot readings from a psychic; Rasheeda and Nikki receive hopeful fortunes, while Carmen’s cards foretell ruin, sorrow, and death. Believing a change is needed, Carmen attends Blaze’s rehearsal and agrees to be his date at the next concert. Meanwhile, [Sergeant Tony Porter] (Hill’s ex-partner) hands Hill and Carmen’s address over to Miller in exchange for cash. A freak accident follows as a radio plugged into a power outlet topples into the bathtub Carmen had just left, leaving her fate hanging in the air.

Shortly after, Carmen ends things with Hill and moves in with her friends in a house that appears to belong to Blaze. Hill—still devastated as in the original opera—receives troubling news from Caela, who still loves him and warns that danger is closing in. Knowing how crooked Miller is, Hill becomes a target. He returns to Carmen, hoping to win her back and coax her to leave town with him, but Carmen refuses to abandon the life she’s carved out. During a tense argument, the voyeuristic Miller accidentally shoots Carmen twice with a silenced gun while aiming for Hill. Carmen dies in Hill’s arms, and he lays her body down before charging toward Miller. The climactic showdown ends with Miller plummeting to his own death. Rasheeda and Nikki discover Carmen’s body and are left stunned and heartbroken. The film closes on Hill’s wrongful arrest, while the rapping narrator pays tribute to Carmen with a final rose and a solemn dedication: > Immortal Beloved … Carmen Brown, There’ll never be another.