 In a virtually all-white Iowa town, Flip daydreams of being a hip-hop star, hanging with Snoop Doggy Dogg and Dr. Dre. He practices in front of a mirror and with his two pals, James and Trevor. He talks Black slang, he dresses Black. He s also a wannabe pusher, selling flour as cocaine. And while he talks about "keeping it real," he hardly notices real life around him: his father s been laid off, his mother uses Food Stamps, his girlfriend is pregnant, James may be psychotic, one of his friends (one of the town s few Black kids) is preparing for college, and, on a trip to Chicago to try to buy drugs, the cops shoot real bullets. What will it take for Flip to get real?