Is the American dream a real, tangible thing? And if it is, is it accessible to just about anyone and everyone? While Atlanta might be the ‘cradle of America's Civil Rights movement,' as the film ‘A-Town Boyz' proclaims in its opening credits, clearly there's more of a catch to the American promise than meets the eye. Eunice Lau's documentaries seek to peel back the layers of human desire to find what is really hidden underneath. In her debut full-length documentary ‘Accept the Call,' Lau inspects the relationship between a father who is desperately trying to connect with his troubled son. With ‘A-Town Boyz,' Lau takes a deeper look at Atlanta rappers in the Asian-American diaspora, and how they have fallen victim to the hole-ridden narrative of the American dream.
A-Town Boyz is screening at New York Asian Film Festival
The movie follows two rappers on their journey to fame and fortune: Harrison Kim (a rapper who goes by the stage name ‘Vickz') and Jamy Long (a rapper who goes by the stage name ‘Bizzy'). At a first glance, Kim and Long appear to be typical members of the Atlanta rap scene: Energetic, potentially dangerous young men who are looking to catch their big break in the industry by garnering enough attention through their music and turning heads during club performances.
As the film progresses and Lau peels back the layers to provide an intimate look at the lives of these rappers through interviews and anecdotes told by their friends and family members, viewers are quick to realize that the story is not so simple. These young men have had a lot happen in their lives, and cannot simply be placed under the label of ‘troubled youth.' Both have been subjected to a series of traumatic events and, more importantly, both have been fed the same narrative of how to make it big in America. It can be assumed that since the version of the American dream that Kim and Long's parents pursued seems hardly realistic now, they have resorted to grinding on the streets in order to make their dreams come true.
The film is accompanied by Vickz and Bizzy's Atlanta-style rap tracks from start to finish, and while rap enthusiasts might be familiar with this style of Atlanta trap music, it is nearly guaranteed to be a novel experience to see these two unique faces from Atlanta's Asian-American community delivering the bars in these songs. The way that this story is told is bound to raise some questions in terms of bias, however. Are Vickz and Bizzy truly complete products of their environment, and victims of the false prophecy of the American dream? Would they have been complete saints had they not been misled down the wrong paths, or is there more to their complex characters than meets the eye? Yet if the movie is accepted for what it is (that is, a candid journey of some oft-overlooked faces in the Atlanta rap scene) then watching it is bound to resonate with viewers, regardless of whether they might be questioning its potential blind spots.
‘A-Town Boyz' might not be a flawless documentary film, but it certainly cuts deep, and is both entrenching and highly thought-provoking. Through this work on her second full-length film, Eunice Lau tells an unflinchingly genuine tale of trauma, family, and false promises in America from the perspectives of an Asian-American community that literally just wants to be heard. This is a community which not many viewers will be initially familiar with, but will feel they know personally by the end of their experience watching the film.
