Just as his career was taking off, Juan Vidal received life-changing news: he’d soon be a father. Throughout his own life, neglectful men were the norm–his own dad struggled with drug addiction and infidelity–a cycle that, inevitably, wrought Vidal with insecurity. At age twenty-six, with only a bare grip on life, what lessons could he possibly offer a kid?
To root out the source of his fears, Vidal revisits his juvenescence, transporting him, a first-generation American born to Columbian parents, back to the drug-fueled streets of 1980s-90s Miami. During those pivotal years, he found solace through the counterculture: skateboarding, graffiti, and the music of rebellion- hip-hop. Vidal infuses his story with rap lyrics and interviews with some of pop-culture's most compelling voices, plenty of whom have proven to be some of society's best, albeit nontraditional, dads.
In Rap Dad, the musician-turned-journalist explores modern fatherhood, offering a thoughtful read that is as much political as it is entertaining, personal, as it is representative, and challenging as it is revealing.