59 minutes.
Affectionate. Confident. Smart.
Those who are fans of Louis know that he, in turn, is a fan of rap music. Louis has described Rap’s New Frontier as “a long gestated dream many months in the making”. Perhaps this explains why this documentary seems to be Louis at his most comfortable. He isn’t awkward, but he’s still enjoyable, Unlike other Theroux documentaries, this felt like Louis was trying to make the audience see things, rather than make them question things. Whilst I usually like to come out of a documentary questioning everything, I don’t have a problem with that here. I feel like he was trying to tell audience members who might not know, or believe, that many young artists like the ones here are trying to escape poverty, and create music that reflects their own lives and tell their own stories. From the way this documentary is presented, you get a genuine feeling of Louis’ care and interest in this genre and the people who make it. Rather than focusing exclusively on the question of criminality, or systemic injustice he chooses to focus on the pain these rappers have experienced. It feels like a sort of documentary-cousin of his Dark States: Murder in Milwaukee. Whilst this documentary clearly is inspired by Louis Theroux’s love for the genre, viewers don’t need to have any special knowledge or interest this second instalment in his latest trilogy.
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