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Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme
KEVIN FITZGERALD, a.k.a. DJ ORGANIC
Sony BMG Music (Canada) Inc., 2004
75 Minutes
Made in 2004 by Kevin Fitzgerald, a.k.a. DJ Organic, and released by the Centre for Hip Hop Education, the documentary film Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme takes a look at the "underground culture" of freestyle rap music. The documentary is set primarily in New York and Los Angeles in the early 1990s. Many of the rappers in the documentary emerge from freestyle sessions at the Good Life Café, a health food store which opened up in Harlem in 1989. Some of the better-known artists featured include Mos Def, Bahamadia, Black Thought, Questlove, the members of the Freestyle Fellowship, MC Supernatural, and Craig G, although the documentary also attempts to include the voices of less well-known rappers.
The documentary seeks to define what the term "freestyle" means in rap music. The dominant definition set forth in the film is that freestyle raps are unrehearsed, free-flowing, not written down, or "off the head" as one rapper put it. These freestyle raps are represented as occurring in numerous places, such as in organized rap battles (where MCs face off in front of a crowd, and the crowd decides which rapper reigns supreme), in cyphers (which are freestyle rap circles), or on street corners and in public parks. Some of the freestyle highlights of the documentary include the battle between MC Supernatural and Craig G, the battle between MC Supernatural and Juice, a great clip of the Notorious B.I.G. freestylin' as a young boy on a...