Movie Review Love Beats Rhymes

Love Beats Rhymes (2017) 

Directed by Rza 

Written by Nicole Jeffeson-Asher 

Starring A'zealia Banks, John David Washington, Jill Scott, Lucien Laviscount 

Release Date December 1st, 2017 

Love Beats Rhymes is the kind of movie that just doesn’t get made enough. This is a sweet, sensitive, and smart movie about a young, ambitious black woman who decides that she can have all that she wants, school, career, a good man, and that all it takes is a little hard work and desire. I wish more movies had the courage to tell young women that you don’t have to compromise all the time and that you can demand all that you want and work toward getting it.

Love Beats Rhymes stars Azealia Banks as Coco, a rapper with a crew that performs at rap battles in New York City. You might immediately put her in a box as if you already know who she is but you would be wrong. Coco isn’t just a talented rapper. She’s also a college student several credits away from graduating with a degree in accounting, all while she pursues a record deal. Most movies force drama by making characters choose one or the other. It’s refreshing to see a movie character, especially a young black woman, a far too rare lead character, allowed to be so ambitious.

As I said, Coco only needs a few more credits for her degree and when a friend tells her that Poetry 101 is an easy grade, she jumps at the chance, assuming that, as a hip hop artist, poetry will be a breeze. Coco finds herself challenged immediately by her professor, Nefari Dixon (Jill Scott), who has a low opinion of hip hop, especially in relation to poetry, which she puts on a high pedestal. Coco also clashes with Professor Dixon’s teaching assistant, Derek (Lucien Laviscount), who shares the Professor’s disdain for hip hop.

Naturally, Coco and Derek’s antagonism is cover for their mutual attraction and soon enough, nasty words give way to loving coos and their relationship comes under the scrutiny of the jealous professor, jealous of someone taking her handsome TA and of the talent of Coco who, when she finally discovers real poetry, takes to it with talent and passion. The love triangle aspect of Love Beats Rhymes is a rather forced cliché intended to inject drama late in the third act, in a very Robert McKee fashion, but the rest of Love Beats Rhymes is so winning I can forgive a few overly familiar moments.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal