While most people understandably associate Wu-Tang Clan leader RZA with music, Ruler Zig-Zag-Zig Allah has also built a significant career in film over the past decade and a half or so.
Beginning with his score for Jim Jarmusch's 1999 cult classic Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, RZA has done music for films like Kill Bill, acted in American Gangster, and even served an apprenticeship with Quentin Tarantino. All of that culminated in RZA directing his 2012 martial arts film The Man With the Iron Fists.
Now, he's back with a very different new movie. The long-anticipated film Love Beats Rhymes (originally titled Coco) is coming out Dec. 1, and we're proud to bring you an exclusive clip of the film, which you can see above.
The movie, directed by RZA and written by Nicole Jefferson Asher, stars Azealia Banks as an aspiring rapper named Coco; Lorraine Touissant as Coco's mother Nichelle; Lucien Laviscount as her love interest Derek; Common as her mentor Coltrane; and Jill Scott as his wife, Professor Dixon. Method Man, Esperanza Spaulding, and muMs da Schemer also appear. In the film, Coco enrolls in Professor Dixon's poetry class, thinking it'll be easy. But she's challenged instead to seek meaning in her words, and begins a journey that takes her all sorts places—even to poetry slams.
Speaking of which, in the clip above, Coco reluctantly attends a poetry slam with her friend Julie (played by Hana Mae Lee). Once there, she meets Coltrane for the first time, and finds herself thrown into an unexpected position.
You can find Love Beats Rhymes in select theaters and video on demand formats next month, and on DVD in early January.
