'Our Fathers Were Like Ghosts:' Questions For Juan Vidal, Author Of 'Rap Dad'
"The first time I saw my father do coke, I was about six," author (and occasional NPR critic) Juan Vidal writes in his new memoir, Rap Dad: A Story of Family and the Subculture that Shaped a Generation. "Batman Underoos in full effect. I didn't know what the powder was on his stache, but I remember wishing he'd take me to see the snow."
He never did. Vidal's father faded in and out of his life, eventually disappearing entirely, in a cloud of guns, drugs and other women. But he's still the spirit that haunts this poetic chronicle of beats, rhymes and life.
Growing up mostly fatherless, falling in — and Vidal tells me Public Enemy was the first group he really, deeply connected with. I'd heard other rap songs and artists before them, which I enjoyed but only engaged with casually. Public Enemy was different," he says. "Their anger and disillusionment with their surroundings and with the overall state of America felt real and raw and urgent. Even though I was too young to fully grasp what they were getting at, it seemed important. Instantly, I was hooked; I believed Chuck D. Tracks like 'Bring the Noise' and 'Don't Believe the Hype' tapped into something in me that longed to be awakened. It was some of the first poetry I truly loved."
