DETROIT — The first voice you hear in the new "Beverly Hills Cop" film is that of Bushman, the longtime WJLB-FM (97.9) host, who is on the radio of a car being driven through Detroit by Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley.

WJLB is well-represented on screen — Foley sports a yellow WJLB T-shirt for a good chunk of the film's runtime — and the Motor City's presence is felt throughout "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F," the fourth film in the "Beverly Hills Cop" franchise, which arrives on Netflix July 3.

To wit: The movie's opening sequence takes place at a Detroit Red Wings game inside Little Caesars Arena, there are shots of Detroit landmarks from the Renaissance Center to the Joe Louis fist sculpture to Lafayette and American Coney Islands, and Foley continually makes wisecracks about the city, which his character has long called home.

Even though he's a only fictional character, Foley is one of Detroit's favorite sons — as important to the city's lineage on screen as his fellow police officer "Robocop," or Eminem's "8 Mile" character, B-Rabbit — and "Axel F" puts him back on screen for the first time in 30 years.

The original "Beverly Hills Cop" was a smash hit when it opened in theaters in December 1984. It topped the box office for 14 nonconsecutive weeks, grossing $234 million — that's roughly $700 million in today's dollars — and almost single-handedly ushering in the action-comedy genre. It also made Eddie Murphy a box office superstar, and his quick-witted Detroit cop would return for two sequels, in 1987 and 1994.

"Beverly Hills Cop" has a long tail in Detroit: The original film opens with a chase scene through the city, Foley's Detroit Lions varsity jacket has become iconic in its own right, and the film features former Detroit Police Department Commander Gil Hill as one of Foley's superiors. (Hill, who died in 2016 at age 84, is seen in the new movie in a photograph on the wall of Paul Reiser's character's office.)

Bushman, who also played a role in "8 Mile," was taken aback when he was asked to participate in the new movie.

"My reaction was, oh my God, is this real?" says Bushman, who gets a full name credit in the film, as Jonathan "Bushman" Dunnings. "I was excited to be a part of something that's historic, in my opinion."

Bushman knew about Detroit from "Beverly Hills Cop" before he arrived in town from North Carolina in 1995, but he didn't know Mumford High School was real until he got to the city. (Foley famously sports a Mumford High sweatshirt in the original 1984 film.)

"I always loved the original movie, and I always loved the Axel Foley character," says Bushman, who recorded his audio for the film about six weeks ago at Ozone Music & Sound in Southfield. "I always thought he was really cool."

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