Which 2018 independent film is the directorial debut of rap artist Boots Riley?

The 2018 independent film that marked rap artist Boots Riley's feature directorial debut is Sorry to Bother You.

Riley wrote and directed this science-fiction black comedy, which stars LaKeith Stanfield as Cassius “Cash” Green, a struggling telemarketer in Oakland. Cash discovers that using a polished “white voice” helps him sell more successfully, drawing him into a corporate world that becomes increasingly surreal and exploitative.

The film grew out of Riley's own experience working as a telemarketer and telefundraiser. He completed the screenplay in 2012, but financing difficulties delayed production. During that period, his band The Coup released a 2012 album with the same title, inspired by the unfinished story. The film eventually premiered at Sundance in January 2018.

Sorry to Bother You is sometimes grouped with social thrillers or Afrofuturist cinema because it combines labor activism, racial identity, corporate satire, magical realism, and science fiction. It should not be confused with Get Out, another acclaimed socially engaged genre film, or with Blindspotting, which also centers on Oakland but was directed by Carlos López Estrada.