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Rap Dad: A Story of Family and the Subculture That Shaped a Generation
A timely reflection on identity in America, exploring the intersection of fatherhood, race, and hip-hop culture .
Just as his music career was taking off, Juan Vidal received life-changing 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 only 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.
“The counterculture took the place of a father I could no longer touch. Since things like school and church couldn’t get through to me, I was being trained up outside of organized institutions. What I gravitated to were these movements that not only felt redeeming, but also freeing. They were almost everything I needed.”
In Rap Dad , the musician-turned-journalist takes a thoughtful and 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, a first-generation American born to Colombian parents, back to the drug-fueled streets of 1980s–90s Miami. It’s during those pivotal years that he’s drawn to skateboarding, graffiti, and the music of 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—plenty of whom have proven to be some of society’s best, albeit nontraditional, 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.
Just as his music career was taking off, Juan Vidal received life-changing 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 only 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.
“The counterculture took the place of a father I could no longer touch. Since things like school and church couldn’t get through to me, I was being trained up outside of organized institutions. What I gravitated to were these movements that not only felt redeeming, but also freeing. They were almost everything I needed.”
In Rap Dad , the musician-turned-journalist takes a thoughtful and 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, a first-generation American born to Colombian parents, back to the drug-fueled streets of 1980s–90s Miami. It’s during those pivotal years that he’s drawn to skateboarding, graffiti, and the music of 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—plenty of whom have proven to be some of society’s best, albeit nontraditional, 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.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published September 25, 2018
9 people are currently reading
217 people want to read
About the author
Juan Vidal
6 books22 followersJuan Vidal is the author of the memoir Rap Dad — which explores father-son dynamics and Latino masculinity through the lens of hip-hop culture — and the novel A Second Chance on Earth.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 18, 2019
I’m not sure I fully understood the point of this book, but I liked sections. I wished the writing went deeper in memoir OR focused on more folks in the rap worlds feelings on parenthood. It felt a little disjointed.
January 22, 2019
I can’t wait to share this book with my husband! The thread of fathers and sons was woven throughout the book, both in the memoir-focused first half and the essay-focused second half. A unique look at fatherhood from a man who, like the majority of his Latino friends he grew up with in South Florida, was raised by a an immigrant single mother after his father ultimately failed his family. I can’t claim to know much about rap, but I am the same age as Vidal and understand the basics of the counterculture. Highly recommend for those looking at a fresh take on parenting and doing better for our children, in the form of a reflection on one man’s upbringing and attempt to navigate fatherhood without a strong role model in his youth.
Note that there is a focus on Christianity for a portion of the memoir when Vidal is describing his work when traveling as musician with a mission group. It is not preachy, but instead self-reflective.
Note that there is a focus on Christianity for a portion of the memoir when Vidal is describing his work when traveling as musician with a mission group. It is not preachy, but instead self-reflective.
January 15, 2019
I'm really glad I listened to this one on audio or I definitely wouldn't have noticed how almost lyrical the writing is (I have no sense of internal rhythm). It was an enjoyable overall read and beautifully written. However, the book just wasn't really for me. I don't know much about rap so entire sections dedicated to talking about important rappers were lost on me. I am also not religious and there is a LOT of discussion about how religion impacted the author's life. I think there are people who would get a lot out of this, though.
November 20, 2018
I’m a dad, and I like rap. But I’m not into dad rap
Wu Tang aint for the kids
Wu Tang aint for the kids
January 12, 2019
I came for the rap... But stayed for the compelling stories about a childhood, growing up, being a young adult traveling the world, and becoming a dad.
The stories weave together wonderfully with rap lyrics and anecdotes. Juan Vidal shares the raw stories and struggles in his life and the culture at large.
Highly recommend this one!
The stories weave together wonderfully with rap lyrics and anecdotes. Juan Vidal shares the raw stories and struggles in his life and the culture at large.
Highly recommend this one!
February 21, 2019
A few tears were shed as I read Rap Dad. I couldn't help but compare some of the author's experiences with my husband's. It's a great book that needs to be read.
May 4, 2019
It’s an ambitious book, and we need more memoirs like it, books where authors examine fatherhood and culture, examine the pain within relationships, their ambition and their faith—and the vicious cycle of men abandoning their families—between childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
You don’t need to be an expert in hip hop to enjoy this book. I honestly picked it up expecting to educate myself more about this soundtrack of music and culture that stayed in my periphery as I grew up in Dearborn, MI. Instead, I found myself examining my own role as a father more deeply.
Also Vidal illustrates a challenge I’ve also experienced first hand: balancing a creative career and being a father. He shares this transition with directness and honesty.
Rarely does one get to read the portrait of an artist like this, even though it is a universal experience: An artist who becomes a father must mold to the new responsibilities of a family, or he is destined to choose the road over the home.
Vidal’s memoir invites the reader to examine that choice, after first examining his own fatherless childhood, one where musical icons and ambition-filled a portion of that space. The book will leave you filled.
You don’t need to be an expert in hip hop to enjoy this book. I honestly picked it up expecting to educate myself more about this soundtrack of music and culture that stayed in my periphery as I grew up in Dearborn, MI. Instead, I found myself examining my own role as a father more deeply.
Also Vidal illustrates a challenge I’ve also experienced first hand: balancing a creative career and being a father. He shares this transition with directness and honesty.
Rarely does one get to read the portrait of an artist like this, even though it is a universal experience: An artist who becomes a father must mold to the new responsibilities of a family, or he is destined to choose the road over the home.
Vidal’s memoir invites the reader to examine that choice, after first examining his own fatherless childhood, one where musical icons and ambition-filled a portion of that space. The book will leave you filled.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 10, 2019
Juan Vidal’s Rap Dad Is the story and exploration of many of us that Grew up on Hip Hop. The Generation that grew up with Walkman/Discmans. We would dig through magazines like The Source, XXL, and Rap Pages, to decide what we would pick up on our trips to Sam Goody or Coconuts Music Stores. Hip Hop was the new music many wanted to call a fad and we have seen it grow to the number one music genre in the world. We understood Hip Hop as the Voice that started out in the Park that was for the people by the people. As he cornices us through his journey, through his youth and relationship with father and friends, to finding himself in his passions as he got older, to the greatest gift Fatherhood, you find yourself in many of the same spaces he was in and it almost feels like a conversation with the author. As a new father, a teacher, and coach I really felt this book and how it shows the Hip-Hop Culture impact on those who matured in America with Hip Hop.
September 24, 2019
This is a beautifully-written memoir of a journey from fatherlessness to fatherhood. Along the way it touches on the impact of music, friendship, faith, relationship and all the challenges of becoming a person.
November 10, 2018
I would technically give this a 4.5- loved it until about the last 50 pages, then I struggled to stay engaged. However, still one of the best reads of my year.
December 2, 2019
I look forward to having this book as part of my library for a while. I believe it’s a book that will grow with me as I move further into adulthood.
January 28, 2019
In 2018, radio personality Charlamagne Tha God made famous a term that the theGrio.com created ten years earlier: adult contemporary hip-hop. The phrase gives a name to the concept that, as hip-hop ages, there needs to be a lane in which grown-ups with jobs, bills, kids, and spouses can cruise. In this world where such a thing exists, you could cruise along to your Black Thought or Tribe Called Quest, without swerving into other lanes (i.e. - trap music, "Soundcloud", snap, twerk, etc). This hip-hop highway could, in theory, carry us all to our destinations without anyone having to be forced into a lane that doesn't necessarily fit their mood or station in life.
And if such a place existed, "Rap Dad" would most certainly be the book of choice for anyone riding shotgun in the Adult Contemporary Hip-Hop lane. I appreciate Juan's candor about his upbringing. At first, I wondered why he spent so much time delving into his personal life but as the book unfolded, it made sense. In order for you to appreciate his maturation into a man who loves Jesus, his wife, his kids, writing, and Wu-Tang at the same time, you need to know the motivations behind the sentiment. In that regard, Juan does a great job.
If you don't care about hip-hop music, the constant references to songs and artist may be a turn-off. But for practitioners of the culture over the age of 30, it's exactly the kind of book you need to read. Especially if you find yourself straddling the "I got to be a practical provider but I also want to wild out to 'PSA' by Jay Z" line.
And if such a place existed, "Rap Dad" would most certainly be the book of choice for anyone riding shotgun in the Adult Contemporary Hip-Hop lane. I appreciate Juan's candor about his upbringing. At first, I wondered why he spent so much time delving into his personal life but as the book unfolded, it made sense. In order for you to appreciate his maturation into a man who loves Jesus, his wife, his kids, writing, and Wu-Tang at the same time, you need to know the motivations behind the sentiment. In that regard, Juan does a great job.
If you don't care about hip-hop music, the constant references to songs and artist may be a turn-off. But for practitioners of the culture over the age of 30, it's exactly the kind of book you need to read. Especially if you find yourself straddling the "I got to be a practical provider but I also want to wild out to 'PSA' by Jay Z" line.
January 13, 2019
Despite the tag of "did-not-finish", I actually did "finish" this, but the last 30% was speed-reading. This is a very ambitious title for the author's story, I think. Someone somewhere told him it would make a good story - and it does/did, compared to a clockpuncher - and so the author wrote it out. However, it is not story enough to make an interesting read. I found a lot of similarities between my life and Mr. Vidals - quite a lot, actually - and I think my life has been pretty interesting and filled with unique experiences, at least vis a vis most of the folks I interact with. I have not written my story down, and if I do, I would not deign to publish it, but rather probably share it with my kin and offspring.
A better title for this book, and this is not meant as a mean-spirited jab, would be "Rap Dad: A Story About One Guy's Experience Growing Up, and He Also Became a Hip-Hop Head Something Serious." This is in no way the story of "the Subculture That Shaped a Generation." It's just a guy relaying important (and relateable for this person) bits of his past.
I suspect an author or publishing house suggested that title. From what I read of Mr. Vidal, I doubt those words are his.
Vidal is someone I would absolutely, positively love to sit down and have dinner or a drink with, share stories, and chat about hip-hop and music in general. I have lots of friends like that. I wouldn't want to read the book they wrote about their lives, however. Juan, door's open, sir.
A better title for this book, and this is not meant as a mean-spirited jab, would be "Rap Dad: A Story About One Guy's Experience Growing Up, and He Also Became a Hip-Hop Head Something Serious." This is in no way the story of "the Subculture That Shaped a Generation." It's just a guy relaying important (and relateable for this person) bits of his past.
I suspect an author or publishing house suggested that title. From what I read of Mr. Vidal, I doubt those words are his.
Vidal is someone I would absolutely, positively love to sit down and have dinner or a drink with, share stories, and chat about hip-hop and music in general. I have lots of friends like that. I wouldn't want to read the book they wrote about their lives, however. Juan, door's open, sir.
February 4, 2019
I was really intrigued by the premise of Rap Dad, Juan Vidal's memoir about fatherhood and a generation of parents, like himself, who grew up enmeshed in hip-hop culture. Unfortunately for me it fell a little short.
The memoir begins with Vidal's childhood, and explores his relationship/lack thereof with his own father. As he grows up he becomes involved in a missionary driven rap group, and travels the world. I wished that his feelings on Christianity were discussed in greater length, because though he becomes involved in the church it's not clear what place religion has in his life. I also wanted more about his wife and their relationship, it's clear she's so important to him but she was very absent from his narrative.
Eventually fatherhood arrives, and the story turns more towards where I'd expected. Yet the focus seems often on how he decided to write this book. I was disinterested in this, and wanted to actually read the book instead of about why he wanted to write the book. Even as the story develops more it seemed he wrote more about how he was conducting research and learning about “rap dads” rather than actually sharing what he learned.
I think there is some really interesting stuff being explored with this book, but wish it went deeper. Since it wasn't able to springboard me forward into relating to my own life I didn't come away with as rich an experience as I think a reader with more history with rap and/or fatherhood probably would.
The memoir begins with Vidal's childhood, and explores his relationship/lack thereof with his own father. As he grows up he becomes involved in a missionary driven rap group, and travels the world. I wished that his feelings on Christianity were discussed in greater length, because though he becomes involved in the church it's not clear what place religion has in his life. I also wanted more about his wife and their relationship, it's clear she's so important to him but she was very absent from his narrative.
Eventually fatherhood arrives, and the story turns more towards where I'd expected. Yet the focus seems often on how he decided to write this book. I was disinterested in this, and wanted to actually read the book instead of about why he wanted to write the book. Even as the story develops more it seemed he wrote more about how he was conducting research and learning about “rap dads” rather than actually sharing what he learned.
I think there is some really interesting stuff being explored with this book, but wish it went deeper. Since it wasn't able to springboard me forward into relating to my own life I didn't come away with as rich an experience as I think a reader with more history with rap and/or fatherhood probably would.
December 11, 2018
I wavered between a three and a four star review with this book, but after brief consideration, I feel like a four star review is more honest. While this book deals with topics that have been covered many times - parenthood in general, fatherhood in particular, music in general, hip hop in particular - Vidal's memoir brings a fresh perspective to worn ground. I really appreciate the level of introspection, both personal and cultural, that this book has. Vidal is a skilled wordsmith. There are some aspects I didn't love, which is just a matter of difference in POV, not style; overall, this is a great read.
June 3, 2023
This is a reflective story of a generation searching for fatherhood. Finding expression , self , voice through the art form of rap as well as father figures through the voices of artists spoke to their lives experiences. The author highlights the communal experience of why hip hop exists how that ties to fatherhood and their own story with patriarchal ideals. The end with a simultaneous musing on how hip hop grew, how the men grew to take on the roles of fatherhood in light of their past and how those inform one another. A solid read.
August 10, 2019
If Jay-Z's 4:44, which plays a major role in the final chapters of RAP DAD, is one of the first dad-rap albums, RAP DAD is an honest assessment of the role hip-hop played in Vidal's life -he was a rapper who achieved a small amount of commercial success before becoming a journalist and memoirist - and how it continues to inspire him now that he's a father of four children who doesn't want to repeat his own dad's mistakes.
December 2, 2024
Rap dad by Juan Vidal is a page turner and an extraordinary read. I could not put this book down. It was giving me 90s hip hop nostalgia. As a kid, my brother introduced me to the world of- BONE, snoop, 2pac, biggie, LL cool J, mobb deep & Lil Kim, and I was not that lonely kid anymore. Music saved me. Juan’s prose brought me to tears, laughter and joy. Thank you Juan for this books existence.
September 13, 2022
One of my favorite reads of all time. Vidal is an amazing storyteller who weaves his life experiences and love for hip-hop together to paint a photo of fatherhood, specifically amongst a hip-hop generation. This book is important. Very important.
March 23, 2022
Not a father but still a good insight on what is to come in fatherhood while adding the struggles of becoming an artist.
May 26, 2022
Rtrfgh
April 28, 2019
I love Vidal's way with words, but the narrative is a bit jumbled. I listened to it, with him reading, which was nice. But maybe not seeing the text in front of me - with chapters and any other organizational cues apparent - kept me from finding the thread. Or is that as an old woman I'm not very familiar with a lot of his references? Anyway I recommend the book, with only slight reservation.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews