This timely reflection on male identity in America that explores the intersection of fatherhood, race, and hip-hop culture āis a page-turnerā¦drenched in history and encompasses the energy, fire, and passion that is hip-hopā (D. Watkins, New York Times bestselling author).
Just as his music career was taking off, Juan Vidal received life-changing news: heād soon be a father. Throughout his life, neglectful men were the normāhis own dad struggled with drug addiction and infidelityāa cycle that, inevitably, wrought Vidal with insecurity. At age twenty-six, with barely a grip on life, what lessons could he possibly offer a kid? Determined to alter the course for his child, Vidal did what heād always done when confronted with lifeās challengesāhe turned to the counterculture.
In Rap Dad, the musician-turned-journalist takes a thoughtful and inventive approach to exploring identity and examining how todayās society views fatherhood. To root out the source of his fears around parenting, Vidal revisits the flash points of his juvenescence, a feat that transports him, a first-generation American born to Colombian parents, back to the drug-fueled streets of 1980sā90s Miami. Itās during those pivotal years that heās drawn to skateboarding, graffiti, and the music of rebellion: hip-hop. As he looks to the past for answers, he infuses his personal story with rap lyrics and interviews with some of pop cultureās most compelling voicesāplenty of whom have proven to be some of societyās best, albeit nontraditional, dads. Along the way, Vidal confronts the unfair stereotypes that taint urban menāespecially Black and Latino men.
āA heartfelt examination of the damage that wayward fathers can leave in their wakeā (The Washington Post), Rap Dad is ārich with symbolismā¦a poetic chronicle of beats, rhymes, and lifeā (NPR).