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Producer Scott K. Rosenberg founded the Manhattan-based Art Start program in 1991 to reach kids at-risk of dropping out of high school. The emphasis on creative expression attracted charismatic and aspiring rapper Chris “Kazi” Rolle to waylay his own incipient performing career to mentor other young people through his Hip Hop Project.
Kazi’s recruits include the vivacious Diana “Princess” Lemon and Christopher “Cannon” Mapp. Recalling Hoop Dreams, the film follows the lives of the mentor and his two protégés in clips from 1999 to 2005, revealing the source for their raps and personal fortitude. Through a non-chronological this-is-your-life tour, Kazi returns to the neighborhood where his mother rejected him, leaving him homelessness on the streets of Brooklyn. (He faces a very uncomfortable, extended on-camera reunion with her). His moving background makes his musical career and leadership, including maturely assuring continuity for the program he founded, all the more impressive. Meanwhile, Princess in Ossining, NY, struggles with an incarcerated father and tries to get through high school and college without having a baby. Cannon deals with a depressed mother dying of multiple sclerosis and an overwhelmed grandmother fighting eviction from their apartment.
With similarities to the Oscar-nominated documentary short about high school performers, Rehearsing a Dream, and so many films about the
dedicated work of non-profit organizations, far too much footage seems like a fundraising video (though the target older white folks seen here at such
a solicitation would probably appreciate subtitles to decipher the youngsters’ poignant lyrics). Celebrity supporters, rapper Doug E. Fresh and music
entrepreneur Russell Simmons, spout the usual clichés about the significance of hip hop today, and the program manager literally talks in grant-proposal paragraphs about the importance of free expression for young people. Oddly, the score by Lord Relic, a volunteer producer for the
project, frequently overwhelms the interviews.
Nora Lee Mandel
May 11, 2007
