Krump is a powerful and evocative dance style created in South Central Los Angeles, born of the pronounced duress and hardship experienced by many residents of these areas. The dance form itself calls upon deep emotional candidness as the dancer plumbs the full extent of their frustrations, experiences and struggles and physically manifests them into incredibly moving performances.

While I certainly appreciate the warm shooting style that expertly supports the medium it depicts, as well as the superbly edited interviews and scenes that construct a somber yet optimistic narrative about what Krump means to the people who practice it – I feel the best description of the film comes from the disarmingly honest perspective of the featured dancer and co-creator of Krump, Tight Eyez:

It’s helped me say things I can’t say to people… like when you don’t know your mom until you’re a teenager, that’s me. I haven’t seen my father since I was four. I have two pictures of him. One is in my room, and one is a mugshot on the internet. You have to put that somewhere. It’s therapy sometimes. And we make the ugly part of our lives beautiful at that moment. We make it good. So, we’ve figured out how to turn the evil we experienced into creativity and that’s the spiritual part about it, that’s why it’s spiritual for me because I’ve done that, because of the type of life I’ve had, I would have been a different man if I didn’t have Krump.

Director: Maceo Frost

Released in 2017.