The Hip Hop Project: Review By sthuris

The Hip-Hop Project follows the development of a program of the same name that gives young rappers a chance to make a professional recording. If this were the sole purpose of the program, the film might be just another bit of reality entertainment. But the aspiring performers are pushed to improve not only their rhymes and their delivery, but their messages and even themselves. Watching these kids struggle to stay on track as artists and as people amid chaos, and learn to support each other, gives the story its drama.

Chris "Kazi" Rolle, the leader of the group, is fascinating, inspiring and resilient. Kazi tells the kids they can write whatever they like, provided the subject holds some meaning for them. Rather than allow them to write to tired formulas, he insists that they explore personal issues and problems. What results is far more powerful than it would have been otherwise.

The film paints a portrait of Kazi as a sensitive and thoughtful young man, wise well beyond his 26 years. We see him putting in long hours as organizer, counselor and teacher, and follow him to visit old haunts and old faces, and many of these scenes are memorable. His mother's coldness when he attempts to reach out to her hurts to watch.

A number of well-photographed vignettes of life in New York serve to break up the film into segments, a helpful device as the pacing is rather slow. Also, there are many scenes of the team performing. In these the film tends to lose its journalistic perspective, and borders on feel-good cheerleading -- an understandable weakness, as we want to see these kids succeed.

Queen Latifah, Russell Simmons and Bruce Willis assisted in bringing the project and the doc*mentary to fulfillment, though we see little of them on-screen here. All of the net profits for the film will be donated to organizations working with young people.