RAP IT UP! Empowering Youth Through the Transformative Power of Rap with Carole Boston Weatherford and Jeffery Boston Weatherford

Dive into the dynamic world of rap as a powerful tool for youth empowerment with the acclaimed mother/son author duo, Carole Boston Weatherford and Jeffery Boston Weatherford. Discover how their newest picture book RAP IT UP! is transforming classrooms and empowering young voices worldwide.

Summary: In this rollicking episode, we sit down with Carole Boston Weatherford, recipient of the 2025 Children's Literature Legacy Award, and her son Jeffery Boston Weatherford to explore their groundbreaking collaboration, RAP IT UP!This project merges their love for hip hop with a mission to inspire and uplift young people through transformative workshops and educational initiatives. Jeffery shares his journey from college freestyle to becoming an author and workshop leader, using rap as a universal language to build confidence and creativity among youth. Together, Carole and Jeffery discuss the global impact of their work, their experiences in hip hop education, and their upcoming ventures, including an exciting trip to Singapore.

Chapters:

• (0:00:54) The Children's Literature Legacy Award: Carole's reaction to winning 
• (0:01:56) Empowering Kids Through Hip Hop Learning: Carole and Jeffery Weatherford discuss their collaboration on RAP IT UP!, their journey into hip hop, and the transformative power of their workshops
• (0:09:56) Raising Kids Confidently With Rap: We explore rap as a form of communication rooted in historical slang, its educational value, and its ability to transform classrooms
• (0:13:55) - RAP IT UP! Rapped by Jeffery
• (0:22:26) - Upcoming Projects

Links:

• Listen to Carole and Jeffery talk about Kin on the Adventures in Learning Podcast
• Carole Boston Weatherford's Official Website
• Purchase RAP IT UP!
• Explore Carole Boston Weatherford and Jeffery Boston Weatherford's other books
• Follow Carole on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn
• Follow Jeffery on Instagram

Transcript

00:02 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Welcome to the Adventures in Learning podcast. Today, we have the legendary Carol Boston Weatherford with us. She just won the Children's Literature Legacy Award and we're so excited to celebrate that. We also have her incredibly talented son, Jeffery Weatherford, with us, and they have the most incredible book coming out this month, wrap it Up, which is their first collaboration as a writing team, and so we're going to be talking about Wrap it Up. We're going to be talking about their relationship, working together, and I'm so excited to welcome you both to the show. Thanks, Diane. 

00:41
So let me start with some congratulations, carol, you just got the Children's Literature Legacy Award, and that's a super big deal. Congrats. How did you feel when you got the call? 

00:54 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
I was totally shocked because of course I was pulling for my books to be recognized in one of the categories. They weren't but I was, so I mean it's a pretty nice trade-off. I was really, really excited. You know, it's a pinnacle and, as I said, as I've told many people, the Children's Literature Legacy Award can be given posthumously and I'm just glad to still be alive receiving it 100%. 

01:27 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Have you started working on your talk for June yet?

01:32 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
No, I have not. I'll probably start working on that in June, unless I'm told that some publication wants to, you know an advanced copy so that they can publish it. So then the schedule gets moved up a bit. 

01:48 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Well, I can't wait to see what you come up with that you want to share with all of us. I'm sure it's going to be fabulous. Thank you, all right.

01:56 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
 So yeah, I can take this one, so Rap it Up is my ode to hip hop. 

02:04
I have been rapping for almost 20 years At this point. I started rapping in college with my college roommates when they started to do something called a freestyle cypher, which is when everybody's going around and just rapping off the top of the head. And then when the cypher line of operations got to me, I was speechless because I did not know how to rap and it was at that moment that I decided that I wanted to be able to join in these ciphers that my college roommates were having and I learned how to rap. I taught myself how to write bars. Of course some might say it's already in me. 

02:52
Of course, you know my mom is a writer, a poet, so I already had a head start and from there I just fell in love with the craft and later, in my development of my own voice within hip hop, I realized that hip hop was a vehicle for expression that could reach so many youth. My mom says that hip hop is the language of global youth culture and she's right in that it has reached all four corners of the planet. You can't go to any place on earth where they don't listen to hip hop. You know, minus the fact that you go to a jungle where there's no technology or anything like that. So I decided that hip hop could be used as a learning tool in the fact that the first thing that we do when we walk into a room or when we meet somebody, we use our voice, and I feel like that kids should have a way to gain a command of the English language. That is fun, that is interactive, that they could use it as a party trick if they wanted to. 

03:59 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
It's something that empowers the youth to feel good about their voice something that makes that empowers the youth to feel good about their voice. And we know that because Jeffery has conducted hip hop workshops since, I think, 2016. We started doing it together and then it kind of became Jeffery baby and he's done hip hop workshops all over the place. Now he's gone. He's presented a lot of libraries, some schools, some community organizations, and the workshops are truly transformative and this book is, I would say, a direct result of the transformative power of those workshops and our desire to empower even more kids. This way. 

04:46 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I think that sounds amazing when you're doing the workshops. I've seen on the website and I know we talked about it before that you will go pretty much anywhere to deliver the workshop. What are some of the things that happen within the workshop and sort of the transformations that you've seen? 

05:04 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
So I would say the thread that connects all of them, the golden thread that connects every single workshop, is that on day one the kids are timid, quiet, they're, you know, they're shy. But by day five, typically it's a four to five day workshop, depending on the on the location. But by day five, uh, or day four, when we are actually recording the raps, you know they're in there rapping and like, oh, like, it's, it's a, it's a pretty, it's a major sight to see, just to see kids who are shy, who are talking like crickets you know I have to tell them to use their outside voices to, you know, in there yelling and dancing and being able to rap like, very, it's like an accelerated, accelerated learning process and it's just incredible to see, almost bring the tear to my eye when I think about it. 

06:01 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
And some of the kids actually. It's a cathartic experience for them and maybe even I could I could probably say therapeutic, because some of them, you know, have some deep seated um issues or pain that they're working through and sometimes I think it's really brave of them to choose to expound on their own pain or their own personal experiences in a workshop like this with other teens or middle school preteens, and it's extremely moving to see them do that, use hip hop to speak to the things that have happened to them in the past, their fears, their hopes, their dreams. 

06:55 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
It's really, really powerful

06:57 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
 Sounds it. 

07:00 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
I've had groups of kids that are all over the spectrum, like some who can't read or know how to write, you know, that are above the age of that. You should know how to do these things. And by the end of the end of the workshops, you know, one kid said to me he was like I could feel that you unlock something in my brain and I was just blown away by that. That's exactly why I do it, blown away by that. That's exactly why I do it. 

07:24
You know, that's the, that's the fire, the fuel that keeps the fire burning, just seeing the transformation because it's necessary. I mean the kids that are growing up today, on this day and age. You know they've gone through a lapse in education. They had to go through COVID and that took, you know, some kids two, three years to get back into the actual education process and learning. On a screen I can see the change. I've been to schools, you know, all over the nation, and there's like a distinct difference in the COVID kids. If you will, I don't want to dub that term, but like they've learned through a screen, it seems like the attention span is much lower. They're underdeveloped, unfortunately, because it's hard to pay attention when you're not getting that actual I'm going to say outside of the screen learning. 

08:17 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
It's hard to learn. 

08:18 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Exchange. 

08:19 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Yeah, and they're digital natives also. So some of the communication skills that we took for granted when we were growing up, they're thinking and feeling is valid enough to write about or to rap about. But, as Jeffery will tell you, the objective of the book is not to create rappers, not to, you know, put kids on a career path to be rappers. And some might, you know, some might do that, but it's a long shot. Jeffery, why don't you tell them what the real objective of the book is? 

09:10 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
The real objective of the book as we said it before, is to teach kids how to express themselves. Give them a learning tool that allows them to gain command of the language so they can put, so they can, they can tell their own story, so they can, uh, be their best, be their best words. If somebody, don't let other people tell your story, don't let other people talk about you. You should be the best source of information about yourself, and so you know, all kids want to get a good job, right? Or, as some kids say, I want to be an influencer, you know, but that's a totally different story. But you need to. Even if you want to be an influencer, you need to know how to express yourself, you need to know how to communicate. And rapping they that like there's a slang term that's like oh, let me rap to you. And that's not saying, oh, let me put on a beat and rap some rhyming words over it. Rapping is talking right In 1960s and 70s slang. 

10:13 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
you're right, it sure is. 

10:16 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Yeah, so if you know how to rap well, you can communicate well because rap is a form of communication, one of, in my opinion, one of the highest forms of communication. 

10:29 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
And one thing that Jeffery has discovered is that, statistically, people are. One of people's greatest fears is public speaking. Some people would rather die than speak in public. Is that right, Jeffery? Yes, I'm not one of them. I'll speak publicly if given the choice, given the options. 

10:50 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Given the option yeah. 

10:52 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Given the option. But rap is definitely a vehicle to instill confidence in kids and to validate their voices. And, of course, you know I'm a former English professor, so we've thrown in a lot of terms that have to do with figurative language. So you'll hear onomatopoeia, simile, metaphor, and then Jeffery has created a glossary at the end of the book that goes over some of these terms so that kids are using, you know, using figures of speech anyway, but it's important for them to know that they're doing it and to know how to do it. 

11:27 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Yeah, I noticed you had snuck in a little bit of the English language lessons as well. I thought, it was well played

11:36 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Thank you. 

11:38 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So in writing this book, you know in the past you all have worked together where Carol you've written the words and Jeffery you've done the illustrations. How was it different where you were working together on the words and somebody else did the illustrations for this particular book? 

11:55 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Well, Jeffery can see. Oh, go ahead Go ahead. 

11:57 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Yeah Well, as it's my first author title being on the other end of the seesaw the publishing seesaw I'm going to say that I didn't realize how much time is spent on the illustrations. Just being an author and watching the illustration go from the beginning to the end to being a storyboard, to being fully developed uh, it takes a long time. And now I see, mom, I see, you know, I see how long it takes, but I enjoyed it being a part of the, the writing and actually having a voice in the illustration, because I do understand, you know, art and what the message that art conveys. So I feel like we have a very special relationship, my mother and I, in that she can tell me what she wants to go into the book, what type of illustrations she's looking for, or if she feels like there's something special that needs to be highlighted in terms of the artwork. She'll let me know that. 

13:08
And I had that same opportunity with Ernell. He knocked the illustrations out of the park. I don't feel like that. There could have been a better illustrator for this project. He's a muralist and murals and graffitis are're in the same family, but the distinct difference is that graffiti is a legal art and Ernell. He does murals. He's commissioned for these artworks, but they're still on giant walls, and graffiti is one of the pillars of hip-hop, so there could not have been a better selection by McMillan. 

13:39 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
I'm real happy with the artwork as well. Ernell Martinez is out of is out of Philadelphia and he is a mural artist up there and this is his first children's book, but he's also a dad, so he connected with the topic as a father Makes sense. 

13:55 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Do you want to share a little bit of it with us, Jeffery? 

13:58 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Sure. So here's the book. Make sure everybody can see the beautiful artwork, and I'm actually the one thing that I'm looking forward to most is going into classrooms and actually performing the book, because, although it is a picture book, there is a certain way that it is designed to be delivered. There is a certain way that it is designed to be delivered, and I would love for teachers across the nation to be able to deliver it like this, but you know, that's very high hopes. Maybe we can get this podcast out to the entire United States. I love it here, how it's supposed to be, but it is a rap, so it is a full-blown rap performance, and I'm actually going to do it acapella for you right now awesome do you want us to do in the hip-hop zone, to say in the hip-hop song? 

14:57
absolutely so. First you have a part because rap is well, in my opinion, some of the best raps have call and response. So when I say your words can set you free, you're going to say in the hip hop zone. Okay, hip hop zone, in the hip hop zone, that's exactly right, all right, so your words can set you free In the hip hop zone. Your words can set you free In the hip hop zone. Your words can set you free in the hip hop zone. 

15:26 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Your words can set you free in the hip hop zone, okay so word is I was born holding a mic pad and pin. 

15:33 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
My pops put out a record and I could let it spin. My mom claims I was rapping before I could speak. Matter of fact, I freestyle like eight days a week. Once I grabbed a mic and I rapped for five years straight. I earned a gold record my first time out the gate. Wait, that's an exaggeration. Call it hyperbole, but here's the real deal. You can learn to rap for me. First things first, grab a pencil and some paper cop a notebook too, because you're gonna need it later. 

15:57
Rap speaks raw truth. So write what you care about memories, mysteries, morals or your whereabouts. Shout out your hopes and heroes. Boast and don't be shy. Write what matters most to you. Keep it fresh and fly. 

16:08
Breathe freestyle lyrics as it fires in your lungs and flip figurative language like it's your native tongue. Try imagery, oxymoron, onomatopoeia, devices like decibels Bang it out of your speakers. Metaphors, alliteration, idioms and similes, personification, puns. In those slamming soliloquies, these terms sound like germs. But don't act like you're scared. They come natural when you talk. You have a natural flair. Keep online dictionaries for synonyms and sounds. Potent words like vivid verbs and concrete nouns. Choose vocabulary as colorful as you words, fresh as green, bold as black, cool as blue. 

16:41
Use a rhyme and word list to power up your verse. Pick, pick words that fit your meaning and freely intersperse. Rap makes word magic. With acrobatic rhyme, near rhyme is committed and hip hop is no crime. Two lines, called couplets, are known as a bar. You stack your best 16 as if a ladder to a star, but you gotta fit the right amount of syllables per line. Count 11 to 15, think a nickel and a dime and you write. Remember the rap is poetry, with rhythm, rhyme and flow. Your words can grow a tree and once your lyrics written, dive in and perform it and practice in the mirror like the crowd is enormous. Spit your lines loud and proud till each verse is perfect. It takes time to get it right, but the words you write are worth it. You rehearse on repeat until you know your bars by heart. Let your voice paint pictures, because rap is truly art. Rap is your megaphone. When you're a real MC In the hip-hop zone, your words can set you free In the hip-hop zone In the hip-hop zone In the hip-hop zone, that's right. 

17:37 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
That was awesome. 

17:39 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Thank you, thank you. 

17:41 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that. 

17:42 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
So I'm looking forward to getting into classrooms and I have a beat that I've made for it that goes with it and going to poetry interspersed in all of them, and it's so nice to hear that voice carry through in Rap it Up as well,

18:13 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
rap it's just very cool to hear the poetry and to think about how you're introducing a whole generation of kids to this concept. 

18:22 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Right, and you know, I don't know if we're introducing them. They know about it, but we might be introducing it to classrooms. Yes, so we're making it legit to you know to use rap in school to teach writing and public speaking and, more importantly, to teach to build self-confidence. 

18:44 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that. Is there a favorite page in terms of where the words and the illustrations combine to tell the story that you have? Oh man. 

18:54 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
So I think towards the end. First, I love all the illustrations, so that's standard, but this is my favorite favorite illustration right here. It is when you're practicing in the mirror, like the crowd is enormous and it's like the perfect illustration of you know, wanting to see your future and see yourself as you want to be. So, of course, here on the right it's the kid he's rapping in the mirror, but on the left he's on stage and there's lights and a DJ behind him and it's amazing, he's in the spotlight. So you have to see yourself as you want to be and that's this. That image just makes my heart glow. 

19:44 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
That's beautiful and the illustrations, as you guys said, are just gorgeous. They really helped to tell the story. Thank you, the book is coming out in March and I assume that you are going to be going on the road with it and continuing to do your hip hop, um and rap workshops with kids I am definitely we. 

20:06 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
actually, before the book came out, I've already had a residency in uh, donaldsonville, louisiana, it's like right outside baton rouge, uh, for like a five-day workshop, and at the beginning of this month I had a workshop. No, it wasn't the beginning. 

20:27 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
It was for February, for Black History Month. 

20:30 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
It was in. 

20:30 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Eastern Maryland. 

20:32 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
In Eastern Maryland. 

20:34 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Actually it was the end of January. No, it was after it was the end of January. It was the end of January. It was before we moved to Philly. Okay, yes, it was. 

20:43 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
I got back from the workshop and then we went to Philly. 

20:46 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Yeah, and we're actually heading to Singapore in about a week. Oh wow, I'm sure we'll touch on this book in Singapore, and we've got a school visit in Silver Spring, maryland, where they want us to focus on rap, so it should be fun. We're looking forward to launching this book as best we can, all over the world. 

21:10 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love it and I love the fact that you're taking it to Singapore. I mean, that kind of goes with what you were saying at the start, Jeffery, that it's universal. 

21:20 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Yep, it is truly Like my mom said. It's universal. 

21:23 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Yep, it is truly the like my mom said it's the language of global youth culture and when we were in, when we were in west africa in 20 that was 2016 also we were in a marketplace and our our tour guide, um, told a group of young, young people who were shooting the rap video that Jeffery was a rapper, so he rapped for them in English, they rapped for him in French. They couldn't understand each other, but yet they got, were able to get into it, and we ended up being in their video. I never saw it, but they said they, they. 

21:56
Jeffery was in it. 

21:57
They said come on over here, mama, you'd be in it too. So, oh, that's so much fun. They were called the Clever Crew. Yeah the Clever Gang. The Clever Gang, yeah, whatever that is in French, the. 

22:08
Clever Gang.

22:09 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Now I'm going to have to go down that YouTube rabbit hole to see if I can find it. Yeah, you'd have to know. 

22:16 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
If you find it, let me know. Yeah, let us know, I will. Let me know, I haven't found it. 

22:21 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Yep, they were live, they definitely were. 

22:26 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And you've got quite a few books coming out this year. Am I right, Carol? This is one of three or four that are due out this year. Is that correct? 

22:36 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
I think I actually have six that are coming out this year, and I just got through making a list of them for someone this morning. I don't know if I'll remember all of them. Uh, but Rap it up. Um, uh, if Kamala can, you can too. That's already out. Yes, um, uh, When I Move, um, hey, uh, a hug Like Michelle's and A Voice Like Beyonce's. That's a companion to my book. Hair Like Obama's, hands Like LeBron's, and there's more. That was so exciting. I can remember. Four out of six is not bad, huh. 

23:17 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
You don't seem to be slowing down at all. I don't know. 

23:21 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Wait a couple of years and see how many books are coming out. You know we'll see. I've gotten. I've had a busy, a busy year on a personal, personal level, so the output is not quite the same as it was before I retired. But I retired from the university in June and I've been busy with some family, family issues and but also trying to work on things that are already in the pipeline. 

23:48 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Makes sense. So what's inspiring you both now, like in terms of next projects and what you're thinking about? 

23:57 - Carole Boston Weatherford (Guest)
Well, we've been working on a hip hop novel like forever, so we need to finish that. I may be bringing that to Singapore with me, Jeffery. 

24:04 - Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Guest)
I might print it out and see what we can do definitely been like a passion of mine for like almost two decades. I really want to dig in while the while the iron is hot, strike while the iron is hot, I guess, as the saying goes, and just start cranking out now that the world knows that I have this skill of wrapping, and just carry it as far as it can go. 

24:41 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Awesome. Well, I appreciate you all coming on to talk about rap it Up today and safe travels to Singapore, and we can't wait to hear your Legacy Awards speech in June. Carol, thank you.