Rap Dad: A Story of Family and the Subculture That Shaped a Generation

by Juan Vidal

Overview

Part memoir and part cultural critique, Rap Dad is a reflection on fatherhood in America, explored through the lens of race, hip-hop, and the counterculture.

Just as his music career was taking off, Juan Vidal received life-changing news: he’d soon be a father. Throughout his life, neglectful men were the rule—his own dad struggled with drug addiction and infidelity—a cycle that, inevitably, wrought Vidal with insecurity. At age twenty-six, with but a bare grip on life, what lessons could he possibly offer a kid? Determined to alter the course for his child, Vidal did what he’d always done when confronted with life’s challenges. He turned to the counterculture.

In Rap Dad, the former musician turned journalist takes a thoughtful and incredibly inventive approach to exploring identity and examining how we view fatherhood in a modern context. To root out the source of his fears around parenting, Vidal revisits the flash points of his juvenescence, a feat that transports him back to the drug-fueled streets of 1980s-90s Miami. It’s during those pivotal years that he’s drawn to the counterculture—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 culture’s most compelling voices—of which plenty have proven to be some of society’s best, albeit non-traditional, dads. Along the way, Vidal confronts the unfair stereotypes that taint urban men—especially Black and Latino men—in today’s society.

An illuminating journey of discovery, Rap Dad is a striking portrait of modern fatherhood that is as much political as it is entertaining, personal as it is representative, and challenging as it is revealing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501169397
Publisher:	Atria Books
Publication date:	09/25/2018
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Juan Vidal is a writer and cultural critic for NPR. His work has appeared in Vibe, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and GQ, among others. Rap Dad is his debut book.

Editorial Reviews

A heartfelt examination of the damage that wayward fathers can leave in their wake.

Washington Post

"In Rap Dad, Juan Vidal captures all of the angles of being a rap fan who falls in love with the genre and then fights to stay in love with it at all costs, despite life's many twists. In reading this book, I learned a greater love for what I already love, I learned that there is a future in which that love can remain abundant, limitless, and endlessly fulfilling. I am thankful for this personal, funny, insightful ride."

Hanif Abdurraqib

2018-07-02
A meditative memoir by a first-generation Colombian-American who forged personal identity through music, faith, and fatherhood.In his debut, NPR cultural critic Vidal synthesizes cultural critique and personal history, attempting to understand how his generation of African-American and Latinx men have transcended expectations and stereotypes to establish family and community structures as the titular "rap dads." His initial intent, he writes, "was to chronicle my journey to manhood and fatherhood and what it has meant to me as an artist." He vividly recalls his own rambunctious South Florida childhood, which included an absent father with a criminal reputation and his own dabbling in delinquency, culminating in a disciplinary year exiled to his relatives in Colombia. This fueled an interest in spirituality, which led to a stint with a youthful, Christian hip-hop collective; while his group toured and recorded, they found it hard to break through. "By the time I hit twenty-two," he writes, "I already felt ancient." Despite thwarted ambitions, he pursued music even as he married and had the first of three children, admitting, "doubt crept into my gut. I carried it around the way my wife clung to joyful anticipation." Eventually, he transitioned from performing music to writing about it, necessity and enthusiasm fueling a career as an editor and freelancer. Vidal captures the serenity and enthusiasm fatherhood engendered in his peers: "Now we shot hoops and curbed our language, our kids orbiting us like small planets." He varies this narrative with cogent discussions of (and sometimes with) key rap figures like Nas, Chuck D, and Jay-Z, noting, "it wouldn't be far-fetched to say that hip-hop helped raise me." Vidal's writing on diverse topics is thoughtful and sometimes funny, but his focus on personal experiences can be repetitive, with narrative aspects that can peter out or seem generalized.A complex take on the often simplified topic of contemporary manhood, with relevance to current cultural controversies regarding immigration and identity.

Kirkus Reviews

"In Rap Dad, Juan Vidal captures all of the angles of being a rap fan who falls in love with the genre and then fights to stay in love with it at all costs, despite life's many twists. In reading this book, I learned a greater love for what I already love, I learned that there is a future in which that love can remain abundant, limitless, and endlessly fulfilling. I am thankful for this personal, funny, insightful ride."— Hanif Abdurraqib, author of They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

"Rap Dad is a page-turner. It’s drenched in history and encompasses the energy, fire, and passion that is hip-hop. Vidal is a brilliant storyteller with a knack for prose. This book is a reminder of why I can’t live without writing.”— D. Watkins, New York Times bestselling author of The Beast Side and The Cook Up

"Rap Dad is a tender, occasionally heartbreaking, and exceedingly honest look at what it means to be a modern father in America (and, really, what it's meant to be a father in America in decades past). Vidal writes with all the grace and insight you'd want from someone untangling such intricate, intimate subject matter.”—Shea Serrano, New York Times bestselling author of The Rap Yearbook and Basketball And Other Things

“A heartfelt examination of the damage that wayward fathers can leave in their wake.”— Washington Post

“Vidal's writing on diverse topics is thoughtful and funny... a complex take on the often simplified topic of contemporary manhood, with relevance to current cultural controversies regarding immigration and identity.”— Kirkus Reviews

“Between narrative passages of memoir that relate his life as a child, father, and writer, Vidal discusses rap tracks, albums, and artists, with energy and soul.”— Booklist

From the Publisher

12/01/2018

This compelling memoir from musician, journalist, and NPR cultural critic Vidal is a story of direction found in a morass of difficult relationships, poverty, social and political violence, and community and societal pressure. At 26, while starting to enjoy musical success, Vidal became a father. His model for fatherhood was lacking—his dad struggled with drug addiction and run-ins with the law. So the author looked to the hip-hop culture that for so long sustained him. His prose maintains a vivid hold on readers, even if the book suffers somewhat from repetition and—as Vidal himself states—the author seems to be taking credit for "doing something [he's] supposed to do." Still, it's great to have a Rap Dad who is inspired by one of our most popular forms of music (and Vidal's use of lyrics throughout works beautifully) and who demonstrates his commitment to his "greatest creation," his children. VERDICT Myths are busted, rhymes are decoded, and lives are unpacked. The theme is ultimately love, and this work will resonate with rap lovers and memoir fans.—Bill Baars, formerly of Lake Oswego P.L., OR

Library Journal

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