'The Hip Hop Project'

photo: ThinkFilm

Kazi makes good in The Hip Hop Project

Details

The Hip Hop Project
Directed by Matt Ruskin
ThinkFilm, opens May 11

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More About

• Queen Latifah
• Kazi Rolle
• Bruce Willis
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media
• Hip-Hop and Rap

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This is a story you've heard before: Inner city kids falling to drugs/crime/pregnancy are saved by the power of music/dance/art. Don't let that premise (or the credited producers Bruce Willis and Queen Latifah) dissuade you from checking out this documentary about a nonprofit hip-hop program in New York City founded by Chris "Kazi" Rolle, a quietly charismatic, formerly homeless teenager. The doc toggles between Kazi's personal story (he grew up on the streets of the Bahamas and remains mostly estranged from his mother), the inner workings of the Hip Hop Project, and the home lives of Kazi's protégés. From domestic strife to studio triumph, the most impressive accomplishment of Project is not the student-made album, but that when Kazi says cheesy things like "This is healing through hip-hop," you actually believe him.