A Fleeting, Cinematic Odyssey of a Texas Rapper’s Origins

In 2016, Katherine Propper met Sauve Sidle in a Craigslist ad looking for actors in a project she was doing as a part of her MFA at the University of Texas. Back then, Sidle was only a high schooler, but almost a decade later, the two have collaborated yet again. Propper’s debut feature film, Lost Soulz, features Sidle in the lead role of Sol, and it’s also his feature film debut as an actor.

Sidle enjoys a career as a rapper and toured with the late Juice WRLD, Cordae, and Lil Mosey; he also has amassed a major following on the social media platform Instagram in the process. Katherine Propper previously has had her short films and work screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, and her 2022 short film “Birds” took home several prizes in its festival run.

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Lost Soulz will have its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival, bringing relevant themes of the younger generations, especially Generation Z, to the big screen. Sidle transforms into Sol, bringing parallels into his own life as a rapper into the story, as Sol is a Texas-based musician looking to make his mark in the world.

Sidle is joined by fellow actors and musicians Micro TDH, Krystall Poppin, Yung Bambi, Malachi Mabson, Aaron Melloul, Big40Thrax, and Alex Brackney as the people who join and leave him behind on this journey of self-discovery and music. Together, they make a deeply meaningful movie that resonates with many artists and creatives working in today’s world. Movies about music aren’t uncommon, but this one has a lot of heart and soul.

Searching for New Homes and Friends

Set in the heart of Texas, Lost Soulz follows the journey of Sol (Sauve Sidle), a young rapper who lives with his friend Wesley’s family. Together, the two are inseparable, and, for a while, it seems like the two couldn’t be separated. But Sol has big dreams of becoming bigger as a rapper, and when he meets a group of fellow rappers at a party, he ends up deciding to leave everything he knows behind in search of music, including Wesley. This is a once-in-a-lifetime journey for Sol, so he only brings a backpack and gets into the dingy, graffitied van that will take this group all across the state.

Sol is joined by seven other rappers and aspiring musicians who all believe in the power of artistry and self-expression. The world is their stage, and whether they are stopping at a random man’s ranch or an abandoned building in the desert, anything can be a source of inspiration. Wielding a handheld camera, they can turn even some of the drabbest backgrounds into a concept for an impromptu music video, and then, just as soon as it started, they pile back into the van for the next adventure.

Related: How Music Can Inspire Movies

In between stops, they pull out their phones and freestyle on the spot. It seems as if this environment is for all of them, as they ignore the realities of the lives they probably left behind before getting into this van and joining the group, creativity is a priority, and thrives in the situations they put themselves in. For the longest time, they manage to stay out of trouble, until one decisive conflict completely changes the dynamics between the group and threatens to undermine everything they’ve built together throughout the movie.

But above all else that happens, it’s a personal tragedy that forces Sol to confront the realities of what he wants in his life. The title of Lost Soulz implies that he is just that: a lost soul trying to discover what’s best for him with what he has so far in his lifetime. While he may love music and can bond with his new crew over the shared pain they’ve had during their lives, Sol still ran away from his best friend and left behind the demons of his past. No matter how hard he tries to bury such things, they’ll still come back to haunt him no matter how far away he runs. And, in the end, life has a funny way of reminding people of what they’ve lost and bringing them back to the roots of their issues.

A Visual and Musical Experience

Lost Soulz very much embodies the ideologies and aesthetics utilized by Generation Z, which, presumably, most of the main characters belong to. How the movie is presented changes with the ambiance, switching from the standard film camera to a phone format when Sol is performing. This mixing of formats gives the movie an even more youthful look and crafts it towards the lens that these characters are creating something together, even if it’s a DIY approach for the characters. That doesn’t cheapen the look of Lost Soulz at all; in fact, it enhances the ambiance and visual experience.

If there’s one important aspect to not overlook about Lost Soulz, it’s the music. For a movie about rappers, there’s quite a bit of performance contained within the film itself, whether it’s Sol on stage at a concert or him with his crew in front of a screaming audience. The soundtrack consists of an impressive amount of original music by those involved with the production, and it’s quite good. Sometimes musical movies don’t hit the right notes when it comes to the soundtrack, but the lo-fi beats that cross over genres fit the overarching story quite well.

Related: The Best Actors Who Were Once Rappers

With these two core elements–music and cinematography–combined, Lost Soulz manages to create a visceral experience. It’s an intimate look at these young Gen Z creatives’ lives as they recreate music video moments in skate parks and make up after having big fights. The conflict is largely internal until one moment where it explodes physically, but as the naysayers to rap may say that it’s harmful to the youth, Lost Soulz demonstrates how it can help us feel a little less alone and be an outlet for creative expression.

Odes to Youth and Being Alive

At one point towards the film’s end, one of the characters turns around and seriously says to Sol, “Music isn’t worth dying for.” For the main cast of the movie, up until now, it seems like this is what is the driving force that keeps them going. When Sol is forced to confront the realities of what it means to turn his back on everything he knows in the name of music, it sets some serious questions for not only, but the viewers as well. Being young is about making mistakes and learning about the world, but how far does one go before it starts being reckless? What does passion become when it starts to consume you?

Among musicians, artists, writers, and creative people in general, there have been notable cases of those dying in the pursuit of their craft. The twenty-seven club has become lore in the music world for musicians who haven’t made it past the age of twenty-seven, and with the deaths of high-profile rappers like Juice WRLD, Lil Peep, and XXXTentacion in the past decade, Juice WRLD, before his death, even made the statement through music: “What’s the 27 Club? We ain’t making it past 21.” In Lost Soulz, death, and destruction manifests in different ways, hitting close to home for Sol and forcing him to reevaluate the decisions he’s making while on the road.

In an interview with Katherine Propper, many of the actors in the movie were found through Instagram and similar means. The lead actor, Sidle, met Propper after she put out an ad for actors on a Craigslist ad back in 2016. And maybe it’s this process that makes movies like Lost Soulz more meaningful in the end. While other films may rely on professional actors who might have a distant connection to the subject matter, many of those involved with this film’s process, including Sidle, have direct ties to the topic and content shown in the film.

Lost Soulz has an immense amount of heart in it. It becomes hard to believe that it was her feature film debut as a director and writer, and for many of the actors appearing in front of the camera, it’s their debut too. In the end, it marks Propper as a director to keep an eye on the future. With a whimsical lo-fi soundtrack, it creates a visceral experience that feels fresh, and unique in the sense that it’s creating its own cinematic and visual legacy.

Lost Soulz had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 11, 2023.

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