News-Letter

You know all those times when you lay in your twin bed up in your room and listened to your parents shout? Or thought about how ugly/lonely/lame you were? Or when you blasted hard rock? You know how you thought that life sucked?

Well, you ain't seen nothing yet.

In the documentary The Hip Hop Project, we meet a group of kids in Brooklyn whose lives are really hard. They deal with homelessness, abuse, parents gone MIA, poverty, crime and just plain hopelessness on a scale that is happily foreign to much of the Hopkins student body.

But even for kids dealing with tough issues, the future doesn't have to be as bleak as it seems. So Chris "Kazi" Rolle, a promising young rapper, raised in the Bahamas and living in New York, got involved in a community outreach organization called Art-Start. In 1999 he started an auxiliary program called The Hip Hop Project, which enlisted a group of high school would-be rappers to write and release an album. The Hip Hop Project documentary recounts the last few months before the album's release, and the continuing efforts of the program.

The kids Kazi worked with say that the program gave them hope and a sense of belonging that they wouldn't have felt otherwise. The impact on them was likely augmented, however, by the fact that the promised album took years longer than expected to produce. When Kazi heard the kids' original "gangsta" lyrics and off-tempo rap, he realized that a lot of research and growth was needed to turn them into authentic artists.

He encouraged the kids to mine their own lives and feelings for material, creating art that expressed and represented them as individuals. The emotional work was tough, and by the time Hip Hop Project Vol. I: Are You Feelin' Me was released in 2003, Kazi and the kids had become a kind of family. The glimpses we get of their creative process, though limited, provide the film's most electric moments.

On camera, for instance, one boy raps about his stepfather. "Listen up!" he yells, as his voice breaks. Tears fall as fast as rain as he freestyles about his stepfather's preference for his biological sons, about the hurt he feels from his own father's rejection. He raps for maybe three or four minutes, and the rhymes don't always work. But it's riveting and real.

Raw emotion also flares during the final desperate fundraising efforts for the album's production. Those last days before the album's production are the ones that the documentary focuses on most, and we get a peek at the larger world that these kids are up against.

In order to pick up more patrons, the kids must bare their souls to strangers at cocktail parties and other modest events. After rapping to a bunch of strangers about her heart-wrenching decision to get an abortion, Diana "Princess" Lemon looks drained. "It'll be easier telling my story when I'm getting paid," she says, stalking awkwardly away from the camera. In those moments, the anguish of the participants jumps right off the screen.

Rap, echoing that anguish and bare emotion, is shot through the film. Most of the soundtrack is made up of original music from The Hip Hop participants, and their live performances are shown throughout, giving the documentary much of its vitality. That vitality is enhanced by the slick directorial style, which features frequent fast-forward time lapses, and startlingly lit close-ups.

But despite its visual beauty and emotional force, the documentary eventually collapses into meandering incoherence due to its complete lack of narrative structure. Possible climaxes, such as the death of one project member's parent, or a huge fund-raising surprise, are simply skimmed over.

There is no dramatic build up, no visible change in character for any of the participants, no organizational structure to hold the documentary together. It's simply a collection of random moments, most of them powerful in their own rights, but with no place in the greater story. Any theme more complex than "Brooklyn: scary" and "Hip Hop Project: good" gets lost in the rubble.

As he powerful moments pile up, we can't help but care deeply about the participants and the world they live in. So it's unacceptable that dramatic momentum is so ill-maintained that the film manages to become dull despite itself.

The Hip Hop Project is a fascinating, deeply affecting documentary that will stay in the back of any viewer's mind. The music is powerful. The film has a luscious, vaguely theatrical look to it. It's worth seeing, because it says something important about humanity, hope and art.

But in the end, this documentary is only a lavish brochure, instead of an investigative narrative. Bits and pieces are heart-wrenchingly powerful, but the sum is ultimately less than its parts.

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