‘The Hip Hop Project’ gives hope to at-risk youth

Kam Williams

Chris “Kazi” Rolle was born in the Bahamas, but his early life was anything but a day at the beach.

The young man was abandoned soon after birth by his mother, who had decided to start over on her own and set out for America. Understandably, Kazi grew up with a hole in his soul, and headed for New York City at the age of 14 to track her down.

But their reunion was to be short-lived. At the tender age of 15, the unwanted Kazi was kicked out of his mother’s house, forced to fend for himself and survive by his wits on the hard streets of the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. He temporarily joined a gang and turned to a life of crime before he finally met with some good fortune in the form of a program called Art Start.

This self-help group enables troubled teens to channel their frustrations positively by giving them a chance to express their emotions through a variety of artistic outlets — including rap music. The organization even has a recording studio, which it uses to attract aspiring hip-hop artists.

Despite the trappings of industry machinations, however, the program’s goal breaks from the mainstream norm in the content it seeks to cull — they want artists to write about the real issues affecting their souls, not ghetto-fabulous gangsta fantasies about guns, bling and black-on-black crime. With the help of Art Start, Kazi was not only able to heal himself and become a productive member of society, but also to set down the path of serving as a mentor to at-risk kids in need of help.

This spiritual transformation is the subject of “The Hip Hop Project,” a warts-and-all documentary now playing at the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge. The skillful film manages to walk a fine line, pulling no punches about the prospects of those stuck in poverty while simultaneously making a powerful statement about human potential.

The camera is kind to the now-24-year-old Kazi in the winning way that it captures his infectious enthusiasm as he influences two of his protégés: Princess, whose father was recently arrested for drug possession and who is writing a song about whether or not to have the baby with which she is pregnant; and Cannon, a veteran of New York City’s subway ciphers since 1999 who is despondent after his mother succumbed to multiple sclerosis without his having a chance to say goodbye to her.

Despite the young emcees’ considerable disadvantages, the triumphant participants in the four-year operation prove that, as Kazi claims, “The criminal mind is a creative mind,” managing to channel their negative experiences constructively by collaborating on a meaningful CD full of insightful personal narratives touching on a variety of universal themes.

As the closing credits roll, postscripts updating the current status of all the film’s cast of multidimensional characters leave viewers with a sense of satisfaction—a feeling only amplified by the fact that 100 percent of net profits from the film will be going to nonprofit charities devoted to youth and to a scholarship fund benefiting the Project’s students.