Album Review: Freestyle - The Art Of Rhyme (Palm Pictures)

Writer: Marcos Moret

Freestyle reminded me of my love of hip hop, that tingling excitement I used to feel shivering down my back – a sensory stimuli-induced flashback to simpler (or was that more complex?) times. Over ten years in the making, Kevin Fitzgerald’s documentary film is a powerful and exhilarating journey through the art of freestyling, the improvisatory, off-the-dome side of MCing. Rhymes spontaneously flow from mouths, enlightenment sparking from the centre of the cipher and smacking you upside your head. Pure, unadulterated creativity that borders on the spiritual, Freestyle is an exposition of an artform that taps into the creative well-spring that is the source of all truly inspirational art.

The film ducks and dives through the history of freestyling (And therefore, unavoidably, of hip hop), from it’s sources in the church and then early innovators such as the Last Poets. Key milestones in the scene are covered off, including LA’s the Good Life Café (a hotbed of freestyling) and the infamous Craig G v Supernatural battle. Underground freestyle protagonists like Wordsworth and Juice sit alongside better-known names like Mos Def, Notorious B.I.G., The Roots’ Black Thought, and Jurrassic 5. Interviews and live footage are combined to in a perfectly paced and well-structured sequence that leaves you lapping up one stunning display of skills, arresting morsel of socio-cultural insight, and tasty tidbit of recounted history after another.

The result: a richly-layered tapestry, the well-defined threads of which afford an immensely satisfying understanding of the nooks and crannies of this particular musical subsystem. Freestyle has given that flame beneath the tinder of my passion for the artform a few more years of burn-time, and for that (not to mention for making one of the best ever films about hip hop) I’m truly grateful.

RELATED LINKS:
Freestyle - official web page



Buy Freestyle at Amazon US (CD)



PUBLISHED: 28 June 2005

RELEASE DATE: 24 May 2005 (US)

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