drummer

Our hero in this story is a young black man. He is living in south central in the late eighties, surrounded by gang warfare and drugs. The school he goes to is a joke and there is temptation for bad things everywhere he turns. But his grandmother has him enrolled in a martial arts school with a kung fu artist who has trained under bruce lee. Our hero is able for a little while to shun the chaos he sees around him and acquires discipline. But when his grandmother dies it sends him into a tailspin of destruction. He eventually finds himself passed out at a party and wakes up in a frenzy and begins to run. He runs down sunset boulevard and ends up on a scenic trail asleep, near the palisades.
Adimu, an immigrant from Kenya who lives nearby and brings him back to her house where she lives with a retired drummer. They let him stay with them and he gets into drumming himself. Starts listening to sly and the family stone instead of hip hop and joins a band on venice beach. In one scene, people of his past see him and think it's him.