Synopsis
The Hip Hop Project is the dynamic and inspirational story of a group of New York City teenagers who transform their life stories into powerful works of art, using hip hop as a vehicle for self-development and personal discovery. The film traces the evolution of this award-winning outreach program developed by Kazi, a formerly homeless teenager turned youth mentor. After four years of collaboration, the group produced a powerful and thought-provoking album that provides a revealing look at their lives. In contrast to all the negative attention focused on hip hop and rap music, this is a story of hope, healing and the realization of dreams.
Votre Filmothèque
Cast
- Bruce WillisHimself
- 83
Christian Science Monitor
Kazi is a bundle of energy, and the film touches on an important and often-overlooked issue: The commercial pressure that is often brought to bear on rappers to be scurrilous and offensive. This project, which was produced by Bruce Willis and Queen Latifah, shows that there is another way. - 75
Chicago Tribune
The film works best when it pays specific attention to how hard it is to write a rhyme worth hearing. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
The story is compelling enough that even glib phrases like "healing through hip-hop" can't drag it down. - 70
Variety
A beat-driven, inspirational organism that develops and blossoms along with its subjects, "Word.Life" tells the story of a once-homeless Brooklynite who prods, pushes and propels his aspiring young rappers to think first and rhyme later. - 70
Village Voice
From domestic strife to studio triumph, the most impressive accomplishment of Project is not the student-made album, but that when Kazi says cheesy things like "This is healing through hip-hop," you actually believe him. - 70
Los Angeles Times
Perhaps the film's biggest failing is simply that the music of The Hip Hop Project isn't more thrilling, that there isn't a sonic equivalent to the wounded, searching feelings of the young writers' lyrics. - 70
Chicago Reader
In a nation that's stripped arts instruction from the public schools, the Hip Hop Project seems like a godsend. - 58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
While their stories are well worth telling, first-time director Ruskin fails to shape his material into the dynamic film it might have been.