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Kiki is a rapper. She’s trapped inside four walls of culture, tradition, and “old-school” ways. Her only escape is through music, one that she’s convinced can take her other places. Even her mother, who we only see in the dark, is sure Kiki is beautiful and can be successful if her next meeting with a manager has a good result.
But the musician decides to go through something first. A process that looks painful and must be at the very least, uncomfortable. Given that she’s Asian-American, her features aren’t usually common in the rap industry. Using a plastic device she tries her best to change how her eyes look. She doesn’t want to be too Asian. In this pivotal scene in Slick Talk, its narrative is presented and solved. It’s enough for a 10-minute short film, whose sole intention is to introduce us to a situation that we rarely talk about.
Perhaps it isn’t important for most of us. But for others, it’s become a way of life. Getaway from your appearance in order to achieve success feels like treason, but sometimes it’s simply the only way. She spends quite some time preparing for her meeting, but it’s only through the modification of her true self that she will feel ready to face a monster of the world she feels comfortable in. From her eyes to her nails. Her clothes and makeup. Kiki transforms her image to change who she looks like.
Directors Courtney Loo and David Karp are behind this swift look at the music industry from the perspective of Kiki, a musician whose talent can be overseen by something less important. How she looks is the potential subject of the most important conversation of her life, and everything in the film points towards a conflict that could be easier to recognize than to forget.
The short film is composed mainly of three scenes in which Kiki fights her identity to the last minute, and gets something out of it. Only it isn’t perhaps what she’s looking for. For her, being a good musician depends on what the audience can see beyond her looks. But in the modern music industry, we know that’s not how things go. We, the audience, know that Kiki isn’t part of a fairy tale and we only want to see her survive that meeting. What the script addresses in the end is perhaps an inevitable outcome.
Is it good for Kiki to accept who she really is and capitalize on that? Surely no, but we don’t see any other way. She can stay true to herself while embracing culture and roots, but clearly it isn’t what she wants. She’s on the path to become an unhappy and uninspired rapper whose most important feature is being “a gangsta Asian”.
You know when short films feel like a great introduction to a potential story? Slick Talk is exactly like that, and Kiki’s adventure (and misfortunes) are definitely something I would like to explore further.
Founder of Screentology. Member of the OFCS. RT Certified Critic
Dog dad.
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– Armessa Movie News