Hip Hop Speaks to Children

Item

Title: Hip Hop Speaks to Children
This edition: "Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat". Ed. Nikki Giovanni. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, 2008. 72 pp. + CD (48 min. 14 sec.).
Online access: Internet Archive
Table of contents: [authors marked with an asterisk (*) are not African American]

● [Nikki Giovanni / Stories in Rhythm: An Introduction]

● Eloise Greenfield / Things [Track 1]
● Jacqueline Woodson / Hip Hop Rules the World
● Gil Scott-Heron / I Think I'll Call It Morning
● Gwendolyn Brooks / Aloneness
● Nikki Giovanni / The Girls in the Circle [Track 2]
● A Tribe Called Quest / Ham 'n' Eggs (excerpt) [Track 3]
● Gary Soto* / Music for Fun and Profit [Track 4]
● Hope Anita Smith / Audition [Track 5]
● Kanye West / Hey Mama (excerpt)
● Langston Hughes / Dream Boogie [Tracks 6-7]
● Calef Brown* / Funky Snowman [Track 8]
● Eloise Greenfield / Oh, Words [Track 9]
● Sugarhill Gang / Rapper's Delight (excerpt) [Tracks 10-11]
● Queen Latifah / Ladies First (excerpt) [Track 12]
● James Berry* / People Equal [Track 13]
● Jill Scott / It's Love (excerpt)
● Mos Def / Umi Says (excerpt)
● James Berry* / Taking Action
● Langston Hughes / Dream Variations [Track 14]
● Charles R. Smith, Jr. / Allow Me to Introduce Myself [Track 15]
● Elizabeth Swados* / Me [Track 16]
● Oscar Brown Jr. / Dat Dere [Track 17-18]
● Eloise Greenfield / Books [Track 19]
● Benjamin Zephaniah* / For Word
● Ruth Forman / Waitin' on Summer [Track 20]
● Walter Dean Myers / Jimmy Wall, 14, Boy Evangelist
● Young MC / Principal's Office (excerpt) [Track 21]
● Pedro Pietri* / Love Poem for My People [Tracks 22-23]
● Lucille Clifton / why some people be mad at me sometimes
● Common / Love is . . . (excerpt)
● Langston Hughes / Harlem Night Song
● Nikki Giovanni / The Rosa Parks [Track 24]
● Maya Angelou / Harlem Hopscotch [Track 25]
● James Weldon Johnson / The Creation [Tracks 26-27]
● Nikki Giovanni / Ego Tripping [Track 28]
● Aesop Rock* / No Regrets (excerpt)
● Angela Shannon / First Signature
● William Waring Cuney / No Images
● Lauryn Hill / Everything Is Everything
● Tupac Shakur / The Rose That Grew from Concrete [Track 29]
● Sterling A. Brown / Long Track Blues [Track 30]
● Stetsasonic / Talkin' All That Jazz (excerpt) [Track 31]
● Gwendolyn Brooks / We Real Cool [Track 32-34]
● Claude McKay / If We Must Die
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / We Wear the Mask [Track 35]
● Antwone Fisher / Who Will Cry?
● W.E.B. DuBois / The Song of the Smoke
● Nikki Giovanni / Doubtless by Steve Ericson [Track 36]
● Langston Hughes / The Negro Speaks of Rivers [Tracks 37-38]
● Ja Jahannes / If We Forget
● Martin Luther King Jr. / I Have a Dream (excerpt) [Tracks 39-41]

● About the Editor and Advisors
● About the Illustrators
● About the Contributors
● Permissions and Audio Credits
● Index
About the anthology: ● Addressed to children, but consists (for the most part) of selections from general works, not works specifically written for a juvenile audience.; ● Includes 51 poems in the book and 30 performances on the CD.; ● The advisory editors, working with Giovanni, are: Tony Medina, Willie Perdomo, and Michele Scott.
● The illustrators of the book are: Kristen Balouch, Michele Noiset, Jeremy Tugeau, Alicia Vergel de Dios, and Damian Ward.
Publisher's description: ● "Hip Hop Speaks to Children is a celebration of poetry with a beat, created by National Book Award nominee, Spoken Word Grammy nominee and New York Times best-selling author Nikki Giovanni, who led an advisory board comprised of leading hip hop poet Willie Perdomo, Howard University professor Tony Medina and music specialist Michele Scott. Like Poetry Speaks to Children, the classic book and CD that started it all, this anthology is meant to be the beginning of a journey of discovery. Readers can immerse themselves in 51 selections from 42 poets and performers, and 30 performances on the audio CD, many recorded specially for this collection.
Hip Hop Speaks to Children presents powerful messages from all of these creative expressions, from James Weldon Johnson to Langston Hughes to Gwendolyn Brooks to Queen Latifah, and shows how rhythm and rhyme form a common thread among them.
Some tracks on the CD are performed by the artists who created them, others are unique interpretations by admiring poets and artists. Hear a musical interpretation of Sterling Brown’s poem “Long Track Blues” and a youth performance of Elizabeth Swados’s poem “Me”. The audio CD also includes contributions from Nikki Grimes, Eloise Greenfield, James Berry and A Tribe Called Quest, among others."
Reviews and notices of anthology: ● "Hip Hop Speaks to Children." "A Year of Reading: Two Public School Teachers Who Read. A Lot" (blog) 17 Sept. 2008.
"Nikki Giovanni shares her vision for the book and the history and importance of hip-hop as the introduction. Such a reminder of how powerful words have been throughout history."; A Year of Reading (blog); ● Fineman, Kelly R. "Hip Hop Speaks to Children--A Poetry Friday Post." "Writing and Ruminating: One Children's Writer's Journey" (blog) 26 Sept. 2008.
"For reasons I don't entirely understand, part of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech is the final selection in the book. Is it a marvelous speech from a remarkable leader? Yes. Does it have some rhythm to it? Sure. But it isn't hip hop, any more than the outfit that Kenley cooked up for Leann on Project Runway was hip hop. That's a comment I have for a few of the other choices within the book as well, such as Langston Hughes's poems "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" and "Harlem Night Songs". The first Hughes poem in the book gets a pass, as it's "Dream Boogie", which uses the language of Be-Bop, one of the predecessors of hip hop, and therefore could serve some sort of historical function. Other anomalies include the wonderful "why some people be mad at me sometimes" by Lucille Clifton (terrific, but not particularly rhythmical or hip hop) and Giovanni's own "Ego Tripping", which is spectacular and marvelous and, um, not hip hop. Same goes for at least another handful of the poems in the book. Great poems, but not quite in keeping with the expectation created by the title "Hip Hop Speaks to Children." Now, if you'd had Lil Wayne or Sean "P Diddy" Combs or Eve read them on the CD, I might have understood it better. . . . Although this book strays from its stated purpose a bit with the inclusion of excellent poems that really have little or nothing to do with hip hop, kids are going to love it in a big way for its used of rhythmic poems and the inclusion of selections that sound like something they might actually listen to on their own. And the other poems that aren't exactly hip hop or entirely rhythmic should prove popular as well, because Giovanni has made great choices, and the recording is fun to listen to (one of the tracks includes Nikki Giovanni, Oni Lasana and Val Gray Ward performing Gwendolyn Brooks's poem, "We Real Cool", while hamboning), and because the illustrations are varied and interesting."; Writing and Ruminating (blog); ● "Poetry Friday: Hip Hop Speaks to Children." "Shelf Elf" (blog) 26 Sept. 2008.
"I love the way this text encourages readers to discover the connection between modern Hip Hop and earlier musical and poetic traditions, reaching all the way back to Call-and-Response texts used in worship, to hamboning, and rap and the blues. I think that by seeing the roots of hip hop, kids and teens and parents will see this art form in a new, more open way. Another real strength of the text is the illustration. Each page offers bright and intensely rich colours, with different artistic styles to keep things lively for the reader. Even short poems get their own full page, which means lots of illustration to enrich the text and give readers something to sink into."
"I have only one small quibble with this lovely poetry collection. In her introduction and in the notes about several of the poems offered on the CD, Nikki Giovanni’s tone veers towards the academic, which makes me wonder about the intended audience. I think that it might have been possible to tailor her language more to the age group that the book seems to be targeting. I imagine my class of ten year olds tuning out for a lot of that, or thinking, “Huh?” Valuable insights and important information about the poems and poets certainly, just not presented in an entirely kid-friendly manner. Of course, you could shift this observation more towards the positive by noting that Nikki Giovanni’s explanations are sophisticated enough to make parts of this book appropriate for early high school students too."; Shelf Elf (blog); ● "Nikki Giovanni Says Hip Hop Essential For Kids." "News & Notes" (NPR) 6 Oct. 2008. [Tony Cox interviews Nikki Giovanni]
"Hip hop is a legitimate artistic form and it just appeared to me that there was a hole in the market someplace. And it seemed to me that parents wanted to say to themselves, you know, should I let my children listen to this music? Well, this is wonderful music, and you can't let some of the other ends of hip hop determine, you know, how we look at it. So, I wanted to put a book together that I thought gave us some historical foundation, taking it back to its origins and bringing it up to, essentially, Tony, the future."
The "historical foundations" include the blues (represented by Sterling Brown's "Long Track Blues," performed by Josephine Cameron) and the sermon (James Weldon Johnson's "The Creation"); NPR (News & Notes); ● Norris, Michele. "Giovanni Finds Funky Beats to Teach Poetry to Kids." "All Things Considered" (NPR) 9 Oct. 2008.
"While some people might not think of hip-hop as poetry, Giovanni says it fits her definition because it uses cadence and creativity to capture the human experience. . . . "Hip-hop is a cultural expression — it's embracing," Giovanni tells NPR's Michele Norris. "And we wanted to cast as big a net as possible, so people can see in the house of hip-hip there are many rooms.""
"The book touches on love poems, blues tunes and jazz — even gospel, including a live session where actress Val Gray Ward reads from The Creation by James Weldon Johnson.
"It's not religious what we're trying to do; we're trying to deal with the cultural end of it," Giovanni says. "So if we have a young, Jewish kid in East Point, North Carolina, who has no occasion to go into a black church, they can now begin to understand, 'Oh, this is where that cadence comes from.' That the history is going to be there, and they can enjoy it without having to compromise their religious beliefs."
The cadence helped people in congregations remember the words, which is what Giovanni aims for. Children's literature, Giovanni says, is like folk literature — and the folk "had to have a way of conveying information," so they used a cadence."; NPR (All Things Considered); ● Vardell, Sylvia. "Hip Hop Today." "Poetry for Children" (blog) 3 Nov. 2008.
Speaking of the CD that accompanies the volume, Vardell comments: "What an amazing archive of music and poetry history this is for this and future generations. My only complaint is that the volume varies a bit, but that's partly due to the inclusion of aging clips from more technologically simple days (a Langston Hughes recording from the 40's, I think) and partly due to a variety of readers (some close to the mic and others farther), but only the purist would quibble."
"The range of selections is tremendous and provides a window into African American poem history, the blurring of music and poetry, and the voices of color that have contributed to poetry for young people for over half a century. As we consider the potentiality of an African American President for our country, this collection could not come at a better time. It's a celebration of sound and song in poetry for young people of all ages, colors, and political parties. It holds up for listening to over and over again, an excellent sign for any work!"
"The publisher, Sourcebooks, has plans for more anthologies for kids next fall; another 'Poetry Speaks to Children' anthology, edited by Elise Paschen, for middle-school readers, and 'The Tree That Time Built', edited by Mary Ann Hoberman and Linda Winston, an anthology of poems celebrating science, nature and the environment, also for middle-school readers. Sounds wonderful! I hope there is a CD with each of these books, too."; Poetry for Children (blog); ● Rich, Motoko. "Child's Garden of Hip-Hop (for Mom to Love, Too)." "New York Times" 7 Nov. 2008.
"“Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry With a Beat,” which features lyrics by Mos Def, Kanye West and Queen Latifah, as well as poems by Maya Angelou and Gwendolyn Brooks, has become a modest hit, rising to No. 3 among picture books on The New York Times children’s best-Seller list last Sunday."
"One of the selling points of the book, which was edited by the poet Nikki Giovanni, is that it comes with a CD of recordings by many of the poets and artists performing their work, including an excerpt from A Tribe Called Quest’s “Ham ’N’ Eggs” and “Dream Variations,” by Langston Hughes. The book and CD conclude with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, followed by a hip-hop interpretation of the speech by Ms. Giovanni and the performers Oni Lasana and Val Gray Ward.
“We wanted to connect some dots, but in a very light way,” said Ms. Giovanni, who contributed three poems to the book, as well as an introduction. “I wanted to find that hip-hop voice that allows children to enter it, because they are listening to it anyway.”
"Ms. Giovanni said she also wanted to reach back to what she sees as the roots of hip-hop in older poems by mainly African-American poets, like Hughes or Paul Laurence Dunbar, as well as to use the familiar vernacular of hip-hop to lure children to more established literary voices.
"“I wanted them to see that there are, for lack of a better word, some train tracks with stops and stations along the way,” Ms. Giovanni said. “If you like Queen Latifah and ‘Ladies First,’ you’re going to love Langston Hughes and ‘Dream Boogie.’ ”"
"While hip-hop has become ubiquitous on the radio and on television, its verbal component is increasingly embraced as a literary form. “There is a growing sensibility that is recognizing that hip-hop is where poetry lives today in so many ways,” said Adam Bradley, assistant professor of African-American literature at Claremont McKenna College in California, who is an editor of a coming anthology of rap lyrics for Yale University Press.
Professor Bradley added that for children, hip-hop was a natural way to learn the basics of poetry. “The kinds of word games that children naturally create really mirror hip-hop in its most basic forms,” he said."
"The book is the second foray into poetry for children by Sourcebooks, a small independent publisher in Chicago. Three years ago the company had a best seller with “Poetry Speaks to Children,” a collection of favorites by the likes of Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Emily Dickinson and Ms. Giovanni, who contributed four poems. That volume also came with a CD and featured historic recordings by poets like Frost and Sandburg.
"Dominique Raccah, who withdrew $17,000 from a 401(k) retirement account to found Sourcebooks 21 years ago, started out publishing books for the financial services industry. In 2001 the company moved into poetry with “Poetry Speaks: Hear Great Poets Read Their Work From Tennyson to Plath,” a book-and-three-CD package for adults.
"Although Ms. Raccah said that each of the company’s previous books of poetry had sold more than 150,000 copies, she said the publisher had difficulty persuading booksellers to take on many copies of “Hip Hop Speaks to Children.”
"According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70 percent of sales, the book has now sold about 3,000 copies. Ms. Raccah said that figure did not account for sales in some African-American bookstores or at group events. She added that there were now about 25,000 copies in bookstores.
"Both the publisher and Ms. Giovanni are hopeful that the anthology will have quiet traction. For her part, Ms. Giovanni said she believed the book would help counteract persistent negative images of hip-hop.
“I just didn’t want to see it hijacked by half-naked girls and boys doing bling-bling,” she said. “I just wanted to try to help remind youngsters out there that this is a good expression.”"; New York Times; ● "Book Edited by Nikki Giovanni Earns Rave Reviews." Virginia Tech press release 12 Jan. 2009.; Virginia Tech (press release); ● Thibeault, Matthew D. Review of "Hip Hop Speaks to Children." "The Orff Echo" 17.2 (2010): 35.
"This book outshines many similar offerings through the inclusion of an audio CD filled with high quality material. The CD contains poetry readings, excerpts from hip-hop recordings, and explanatory tracks where authors talk about works or larger contexts within which certain works were created. Each track is referenced clearly within the book, and the recording quality throughout is high. Songs range from the Sugarhill Gang's classic "Rapper's Delight" to the feminist anthem "Ladies First" by Queen Latifah and Oscar Brown Jr.'s recording of "Dat Dere." Most of the songs are presented as excerpts (likely for copyright reasons). However, poems are read in their entirety, and the forty-one total tracks are a deeply satisfying as a listening experience."
The book "presents hip-hop as part of the glorious tradition of twentieth century African American poetry. The book convincingly presents and effectively pairs Young MC's "The Principal" with Pedro Pietri's "Love Poem for My People." This pairing helps encourage students to think deeply and critically about text in the songs they enjoy. This could also encourage more attention to the musical cadence and rhetorical style of writers such as Langston Hughes, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Maya Angelou. In conceiving of hip-hop as a descendent of the Harlem Renaissance, the book presents hip-hop as a music to which teachers not only can relate, but should feel a responsibility to understand and promote."
"This volume also captures the multimedia nature of hip-hop, which is best described as a culture involving visual, textual, musical, and dance styles. In addition to the poetic texts and included CD, the book brims with vivid, powerful illustrations from five illustrators. If one area is neglected in Hip-Hop Speaks to Children, it is better attention to the music that accompanies the rhymes. Here, interested teachers could benefit from reading outside sources such as Jeff Chang's "Can't Stop, Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation', or Susan McClary's wonderful essay, "Rap, Minimalism, and Structures of Time in Twentieth Century Music." They might also benefit from showing students excerpts from the 2002 movie 'Scratch', or by listening to the wonderful series of interviews with hip-hop stars by Terry Gross on NPR's 'Fresh Air'."; IDEALS (institutional repository, U of Illinois)
Commentary on anthology: ● Boggs, Jacklyn. "Imagining Identity Beyond the Fishbowl: A Framework for Using Ethnographic Texts for Children to Cultivate a Place of Inclusion and Belonging." Dis. U of Memphis, 2022.
Includes a discussion of "Hip Hop Speaks to Children" (109-12). The author notes that in a 2008 interview with Scholastic Kids! Radio, Giovanni confesses "that she herself is not a particular fan of hip hop and is more of a 'disco person,'" but she nonetheless "liked what the kids were doing" and "thought it was time that the so-called cultural warirors got involved" (109-10).
See also: ● "Nikki Giovanni on Hip Hop Speaks to Children." "SourcebooksInc." YouTube (25 June 2008).; YouTube
Item Number: A0618

Item sets: Anthologies

Media: Front cover; Back cover