Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme is a film that Paul Devlin edited and produced in 2000. The full length film is now available on SnagFilms & Hulu. Check it out! You can also own the film by buying the DVD here
Directed by Kevin Fitzgerald, FREESTYLE: THE ART OF RHYME documents the freestyle scene from the early 1980s through the present day, featuring a who’s who list of seminal hip-hop figures including MC Supernatural, Mos Def, Roots members Black Thought & Questlove, Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur, and many more providing a rarely seen portrait of hip hop that is at once entertaining, historical, and educational.
You can also catch a special interview with director Kevin Fitzgerald over at Hulu. In it he talks about the rigors of DIY distribution. He states:
We created our own hip-hop film festival. We took it on the road, it was a total DIY thing, all over the country and even the world. Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Europe; we showed the film everywhere and did the hip-hop film festival thing. A bunch of film festivals, and now, I’m kinda burnt out on the whole thing, to tell you the truth. I wanna switch gears and get into some other field, because it was a wild ride. Ten years of just lashing hard on this film and I got a little burnt out.
Read the full interview with Kevin here.