The art of battle rap in Joseph Kahn's BODIED | TIFF 2018

Joseph Kahn, the director of BODIED (produced by Eminem), discusses his new film, why he thinks art shouldn't be politically correct, his career upbringings, and why battle rap is most definitely art.

Penned by celebrated Toronto battle rapper Alex Larsen (a.k.a. Kid Twist), BODIED assumes the perspective of Adam (Calum Worthy), a white, purportedly progressive graduate student who infiltrates a community of diverse battle rappers for the sake of an edgy thesis. Before long he develops his own predilection for skilfully slinging rhymed insults and epithets as a competitive poet, and director Joseph Kahn plays out the premise like a twitchy funhouse mirror of 8 MILE, cleverly subverting the Eminem vehicle’s trajectory to a sardonic and sobering effect.

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