I’m back on Steemit!
After a 4 month break I'm back on Steemit!
During my "time off" from blogging and podcasting my kids were off school for the summer, so that kept me busy 24/7. Oh and we also moved house which was a much bigger deal than I anticipated! But we're finally settled into our new home and schools and back into some kind of routine so more time for blogging yay!
This gem of a book
You may have seen some of my previous posts about books that I buy/read for my kids. On a recent trip to the library with my toddler I came across this gem!
#A journey through hip hop
The Story of Rap by Nicola Edwards, Lindsey Sagar (Illustrations). It's a board book for toddlers, although I enjoyed reading it myself and so did Mini Me 1 and Mini Me 2 who are now 10 and 9 years old. It takes kids on a rhyming journey through the creation of rap music from Grandmaster Flash to Kendrick Lemar. The illustrations are colourful and super cute and the story has a nice flow to it. I love this book so much I'm going to buy a copy.
Parental advisory
Obviously it's important to introduce kids to the actual rap songs if you're reading a book about it. Just a word of warning though. If like me you do choose to take your kids on a nostalgic trip down memory lane maybe try and pre-plan your playlist! My favourite era of hip hop was the late 90s/early 00s and any the Biggie Smalls albums "Ready to Die' and 'Life After Death' were literally the soundtrack to my uni days. This was somewhat problematic when I was trying to re-live my youth in the middle of the living room with my kids and realised (a little too late) that all the tracks have "Explicit lyrics" and "parental advisory" is recommended....ooops!
Powerful
Nevertheless, if you like rap music and are a parent do take that musical journey with your kids, (maybe find some clean versions of the tracks!). I's important for kids to know about the artists that influenced the rap artists of today that they are familiar with. And let's face it, rap is a powerful way to get a message across and has shaped generations. Plus there are some things they are just not gonna learn at school so your job is to equip them with highly important life skills like singing along to a Lauren Hill track.
Proud
Obviously you can't force your kids to like a type of music but it's nice to expose them to songs other than 'Baby Shark"! Yesterday morning Mini Me 1 and 2 put on Montel Jordan's "This is How We do It" and Kanye and Estelle's "American Boy". I was so proud!
MummyImperfect x