So any educator worth their weight in gold knows just how important the social aspect of education is in a student’s life especially if they took any educational psychology under their tutelage. The male educator who went viral for individualized greetings was just the beginning of a new wave of education that’s truly student based. The countless videos of educators taking songs and flipping them for educational purposes whether it was the variation of the Bodak Yellow song or the Ron Clark Academy videos, went viral and made us smile. For us millennials we watch and wish that our teachers would have been this enlightened but alas times change and we must do the same. With that said there were five records this year that could be used for countless Socratic Seminars, Philosophical Chairs, and any other fancy term for collaborative discussions. To aid in the lesson planning, I’ll put asterisks by the songs that may require an edited version.
1. Miguel- Now
2. Rapsody- Black & Ugly
3. Joey Bada$$- Land of the Free’
4. Logic- AfricAryan
5. Spar, Dreezy feat 6Lack, and Kodak Black
Miguel, an R & B artist of mixed ancestry, ( His father was Mexican and his mother African American), recently released his newest project War and Leisure this past year including a song entitled Now. Now focuses on the current plight of many undocumented immigrants in California being held at the Adelanto High Detention Center where they are then being exploited. Tolerance and an emphasis on the historical origin of America and immigration are the talking points.
Rapsody, a rapper from North Carolina recently dropped a project Laila’s Wisdom that addresses a range of issues that affect women and women of color. Her song Black & Ugly addresses a range of issues from body imaging to colorism in a way that’s relevant and entertaining.
*Joey Bada$$, a rapper from Brooklyn, New York dropped an album All-American Bada$$ using the three K’s as a form of satire and political commentary. Land of the Free is more satire as Joey juxtaposes the police brutality and militarization of our law enforcement system With the ever-changing concept of freedom. You could even throw in some references to the work 1984 by George Orwell to help generate discussions.
*Logic, a rapper from Gaithersburg, Maryland, has mixed ancestry as well which is evidenced by the title of his song AfricAryan from his last project Everybody. His project Everybody garnered him major attention this year in the form of two Grammy nominations for his record 1-800-273-8255, a passionate and heartfelt record named after the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The song AfricArayn analyzes the complexities of being a biracial person in a racially responsive society while also addressing the fact that we as human are all originally from Africa in spite of ideologies such as the Aryan race.
*Dreezy, a rapper and writer from the Southside of Chicago, released a record last year entitled Spar featuring the burgeoning entertainer 6Lack and rapper Kodak Black. Spar addresses the social climate in 2017 with topics from weather control, capitalism, the war on drugs, and religion in the black community. And yeah the kids like Kodak Black so that’s an easy selling point. Use these wisely my friends!
Wright World 