It’s the summer of ’78 and if you’re looking for good times there is just one place to go: the local roller disco, where the music is hot, the girls are hotter, and the entire atmosphere is dynamite. Xavier Smith (Bow Wow), also known as X, is a young roller wiz who, along with his crew, once ruled supreme at their South Side of Chicago rink, the Palisades Gardens. But when the doors of their favorite hangout close, it marks the end of an era and the beginning of another that sees the boys venturing into completely foreign territory: the North Side’s swanky Sweetwater Roller Rink, with its sleek, well-to-do roller-boys and gorgeous girls in short-shorts. For X and his friends, Sweetwater is a brave new world that gives way to an impossible dream: to win the rink’s annual Roller Jam Skate-Off.
