Reviews
A Review of The Hip Hop Project
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If the world were listening, what would you say? This was the question that Chris “Kharma Kazi” Rolle posed in his documentary, A Hip Hop Project.” The documentary chronicles Kazi’s transformation from hood to sage, educator, life coach using, in his own words, “hip hop as a conduit.” Taking on other artists, he showed them the realness that hip hop can posit through self knowledge and helped direct these high school kids towards an enhanced self awareness that may not have otherwise been acquired.
As he pushes these kids to flex their brains, he also gets them to flex their hearts—encouraging them to use their life experiences, such as abortion, love, hate, fatherlessness and death as the backdrop for their verbal artistry.
And in many ways, the teacher becomes the student, as the documentary also follows Kazi’s personal growth, as an adoptee who comes to grips with his mother’s leaving him in the Bahamas as she migrated to the US.
The documentary can be summed up in one word—“process.” The creative process, the growth process, the process of self discovery all played out in real time on the big screen. This type of emotional openness is unheard of in the hip hop community, the ‘cool pose’ community. Kazi’s strength and humanity provided viewers an understanding that the vulnerability of being true to self is the core of real strength. When asked how he managed to find strength to not only go through his process, but to do it through a cmera lense, he simply said that he hoped that his healing would bring about the healing of others. And it does in a big way.
Cannon, Ty Nitty, Princess, Lou, Verse and others, weighed down by life’s hardships, used Kazi’s strength, realness, compassion and love as a guidepost. These kids, crossing the threshold into adulthood—at a point where their life’s outcomes hinges on their decision making, used their verbal artistry and Kazi’s tutelage to thrust them onward and upward.
One man can truly make a difference. Sounds a little cliché until you see it happening, and Kazi is proof. The Hip Hop Project is proof. How much proof do we need before we start trying to become proof ourselves? That’s the only question that need be asked.
I just had the pleasure of speaking with Kazi and he’s just recently finished his site, www.chriskazirolle.com.
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