Independent Lens: P-Star Rising

Airs Sunday, February 7, 2010 at 11 p.m. on KPBS TV

Young rapper P-Star (Priscilla Diaz ), age nine, performs at a Harlem street festival.

Credit: Jose Cozco

Above: Young rapper P-Star (Priscilla Diaz ), age nine, performs at a Harlem street festival.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

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At age nine, Priscilla, a 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, or P-Star’s, passion and impressed with her talent and charisma, he begins to teach her all he knows about rapping.

Priscilla Diaz, aka P-Star, with her father, Jesse, as they return from a late night studio recording session.

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Credit: Gabriel Noble

Above: Priscilla Diaz, aka P-Star, with her father, Jesse, as they return from a late night studio recording session.

Suddenly, this father-daughter duo goes from a one-bedroom shelter in Harlem to a four-bedroom apartment, from food stamps to shopping sprees, from rapping on street corners to sold-out night clubs. 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 whom to trust. The ride has just begun. By Gabriel Noble.

In this online interview, director Gabriel Noble talks about how he discovered P-Star in a New York nightclub and found himself filming her journey from a shelter to the doorstep of stardom.

Video

Excerpt: Independent Lens: P-Star Rising

Above: "Independent Lens: P-Star Rising" tells the story of a single-father who is determined that his 9- year old daughter become a rap star and thus redeem his deferred dream. We follow the father-daughter duo through the grit and glamour of the music industry, the struggles of being a single dad with no means, and the sacrifices a child makes in order to make her daddy proud.

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