Long before emerging as a major filmmaker with Selma, Ava DuVernay was a regular fixture at South Central L.A.’s Good Life Cafe, rapping with Figures of Speech under the name Eve. DuVernay made This Is the Life in 2008, interviewing all the major players in a scene that was ground zero for underground and conscious hip-hop in the early ’90s. What emerges is a picture of pure, youth-driven creativity (and frequent genius), unsullied by market forces and driven by love and respect. While Ice Cube and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, among others, were skulking around and winning Grammys with styles jacked from the Good Life, a crew like the astounding Freestyle Fellowship was turning its back on the majors for reasons that’ll outlive any lower definition of “success”. There’s a slew of unmissable films at this year’s DOXA, and this insanely inspiring effort is easily one of them. 

Georgia Straight, May 2016