Working with non-professionals playing semi-fictionalised characters, there’s a raw authenticity here, which, combined with close, kinetic camerawork and overlapping dialogue, attaches thrilling momentum to the students’ workshops. The film never suggests rap music will be a way out of difficult situations, but that it helps those with struggles cope. That it offers no answers to big questions is to its credit, making ‘Casablanca Beats’ an ode to expression itself.