P-Star Rising, Documentary, On PBS Tonight, Feb. 9, 2010

By
Birthplace Magazine
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P-Star Rising is a documentary capturing four years in the life of Priscilla “Star” Diaz, a young girl from New York City who is being primed as a rap star by her father, Jesse. The award-winning film, by Gabriel Nobel, showcased at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2009, and is an interesting look at a father’s deferred dream, an enthusiastic young artist, hopes, dreams, music and life.

Check out the trailer below, and tune in tonight, Feb. 9, 2010, to PBS (Channel 13 in NY) from 10:00pm-11:30pm.

Synopsis (from http://www.pstarrising.com/synopsis):

At age 9, Priscilla, an adorable yet precocious little girl, tells her single-father, Jesse,: “I am going to become a rapper and fulfill your dreams of succeeding in the music business.” Moved by Priscilla’s passion and impressed with her natural talent and undeniable charisma, he begins to teach her all he knows about rapping. In the four years that follow there is no question that rapping has brought Priscilla closer to her estranged father, and that her success has made him proud. Before our eyes, this father-daughter duo go from a one-bedroom shelter in Harlem to a 4 bedroom apartment, from food stamps to shopping sprees, from rapping on street corners to sold out night clubs, and from sneaking under train turnstiles without the $2 fare to spare to being driven around in tinted SUV’s. It is further undeniable that Jesse has been reborn, from looking at old photos and bitterly reflecting on how he never was given the respect he deserved in the music business as a rapper himself to finding his own voice and self-respect as his daughter’s overzealous manager. But in the efforts to make her dad proud, Priscilla struggles to remain a child and finds herself trapped in a world of people twice her size and four times her age and doesn’t know who to trust. Jesse himself is caught between wanting to protect his daughter’ innocence and exploiting her raw talent to fulfill his deferred dream. All they know is that the ride has just begun.