Let It Shine 2012

In Atlanta, 15-year-old Cyrus DeBarge [Tyler James Williams] is a gifted musician and choir director who writes rap lyrics under the alias Truth because of his father, Pastor Jacob DeBarge [Courtney B. Vance],’s disapproval of hip-hop and his shy demeanor next to his more outgoing best friend Kris McDuffy [Trevor Jackson]. Unbeknownst to Jacob, Cyrus secretly works as a busboy at a club called “Off the Street,” where the music label of their childhood friend Roxie Andrews [Coco Jones], a teenage singing sensation, is sponsoring a songwriting contest. Roxie chooses Truth’s song Don’t Run Away as the winning entry but misidentifies Kris as Truth because the photo Cyrus submitted features both of them. Kris convinces Cyrus to let him keep the credit because he has feelings for Roxie, and as Kris uses Cyrus’ verses to get closer to Roxie and ride his newfound fame, Cyrus begins to resent his friend.

As Cyrus and Roxie start to get to know each other, she says she can talk to him more easily than she can talk to Kris. Cyrus invites her to perform with the church choir, and after their performance, Pastor Jacob humiliates Roxie in front of the congregation by condemning people living in “hip-hop-crisy.” His wife Gail [Dawnn Lewis] persuades Jacob to apologize to Roxie at the club, where he discovers Cyrus’s secret as a writer of rap lyrics. At first, he is furious and grounds him, but Jacob comes to realize that Cyrus’ raps carry uplifting messages and lifts the punishment.

The tension between Cyrus and Kris comes to a head in a physical altercation, and club owner Levi [Alex Désert] steps in to urge them not to let their friendship die. During a duet with Roxie, Cyrus takes Kris’ place on stage to sing Me and You, revealing that he was Truth all along. Cyrus apologizes, but Roxie storms off, feeling betrayed and misled. In a rap challenge, Cyrus calls out the pompous rapper Lord of Da Bling [Brandon Mychal Smith], and he wins the trophy by exposing Bling as a fraud, having seen him the previous week working his day job as a taxi driver.

Kris tells Roxie that Cyrus is a good person who only pretended to be Truth for Kris, explaining that Cyrus is real and the one she should be with. Roxie eventually goes to the church and embraces Cyrus as they sing Let It Shine together, reaffirming their connection and the message behind Cyrus’ art.