Philadelphia-based rapper Black Thought of the Roots is set to make his cinematic debut in the Mark Levin-directed film, Brooklyn Babylon. The movie premieres in the U.S. this week at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music's Rose Cinemas in New York. Black Thought (Tariq Trotter) plays the role of Sol, a Rastafarian rapper on the verge of stardom who falls in love with Sara, a young Hasidic Jew. The story was inspired by the Old Testament's "Song Of Songs" and is set in Crown Heights, a Brooklyn neighborhood where there is a history of tension between the Jewish and the African-American communities.

Mark Levin, who also directed Slam and Whiteboys, explained how he came up with the idea for the movie, "In the mid-'70s I spent time in Jerusalem and Jamaica. I discovered both the Hasids and the Rastas were into this mystical biblical text, the "Songs Of Songs"...It was about an unmarried interracial love affair...I felt it was time to do my Bible film, a hip-hop Solomon and Sheba in the neighborhood where my parents and grandparents all grew up. In a way, it completes my trilogy: Slam, Whiteboys, and Brooklyn Babylon."