When he became a dad, this rapper realized kids' music kinda stinks. So he changed that
Raheem Jarbo and his wife were fostering a child they’ve since adopted when the inspiration for his latest album, “Buddy’s Magic Toy Box,” hit.
“It changes you,” the Phoenix schoolteacher turned rapper who records and tours as Mega Ran recalls of his transition into fatherhood. It found him listening to “a ton” of children’s music while spending time with Zion, whose second birthday is Oct. 13.
“And a lot of children’s music, if I can be frank … I mean, it isn't great,” he says. “I felt a lot of it was just kind of bubblegum fluff with not a lot of substance to it.”
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He found himself imagining the sort of children’s record he might want his child to hear.
“I'm always a fan of trying to put a little medicine in with the candy,” he says.
“Have a good time, dance, but also maybe learn a little something and become a better person when you really listen to the lyrics. So that was my focus, was trying to make better children's music than what my kid wanted to listen to. And I think we got there.”
“Buddy’s Magic Toy Box,” an album whose release he plans to celebrate with a show at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix on Saturday, Aug. 12, is the rapper’s first attempt at writing children’s music.
“I had a really hard time getting started,” Jarbo says.
“As a rapper, particularly, you pride yourself on being a wordsmith, finding new ways to say things that haven't been said before. And I grade myself very strict. The wordplay has to be top-notch. The rhyme scheme has to be top-notch. The vocabulary has to be top-notch.”
But this was children’s music.
“For a children's album, you've gotta throw a little bit of that out of the window and have a good time,” Jarbo says. “But it really was tough kind of dumbing myself down without getting too dumb, if that makes sense.”
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For Mega Ran, recording children's music was 'a natural progression'
To Jarbo, the idea of releasing children’s music wasn’t that much of a stretch.
“I mean, my music has always been clean anyway,” he says. “I've been releasing clean music for 15 years. Without even a damn.
"So I would say it might have been a natural progression as I got older, to work on a children's record, coming from a classroom background. Maybe not at this time. But I think at some point.”
The commitment to keeping it clean was in many ways an outgrowth of his day job, teaching middle school.
“That was always in the back of my mind, that I wanted to make music my students could listen to so I could play it for them in class,” he says. “Or if I'm ever guesting in a classroom, I can play my music without having to get anyone's approval on lyrics or content.”
Jarbo gave up teaching to focus on music in 2011, but that experience prepared him for a lot of things, not just recording children’s music.
“Teaching middle school prepared me for everything,” he says.
“For being a performer, thinking quickly on my toes, being able to improvise on the fly. Absolutely everything comes from me being a teacher. I joke all the time that if I can teach a classroom full of 12-year-olds, I can do anything. They will challenge you. Drunk adults are easy.”
Jarbo launched his recording career in 2006 with "The Call," a debut album credited to Random, following through in 2007 with “Mega Ran,” a tribute to the Mega Man video games of his youth.
He changed his hip-hop persona to Mega Ran in 2014, between the 2012 release of Random’s “Mega Ran in Language Arts" and Mega Ran's 2015 effort, "RNDM."
'Buddy's Magic Toy Box' was named for an actual toy box
Jarbo named his latest effort for an actual toy box.
“For the longest time, we affectionately called Zion ‘Buddy,’" he says.
“He got a toy box from his auntie that whenever it was time to put his toys away, I would say, 'Alright, let's put it in the magic toy box.' That just stuck, and everything would be inside of there. His balls, his dolls, his animals, his books. So it became the source of a lot of his inspiration. And it also inspired a lot of the songs.”
Jarbo sees the target demographic as kids between the ages of 3 and 11.
“I feel like the album grows up as it goes along,” he says.
“I was like, ‘Alright, we'll start off with some counting. Basic stuff. And then by the end of the album, we're talking about bullies, friendships, self-esteem, important character stuff. But I think younger kids will still bob their heads to the beats and the rhythms and choruses.”
Zion loves the album, Jarbo says.
“We play it for him all the time. And he's excited about it. Once he's older and able to really understand it, I think he'll be able to really pull some cool lessons out of the music.”
Mega Ran drew in part on his own childhood for inspiration
A lot of what he raps about on “Buddy’s Magic Toy Box” is drawn from Jarbo’s experiences as a child.
“I joke a lot about how 'Lovable and Capable,’ which is just an affirmation track, is the song I wish I would’ve heard when I was young,” he says. “I think it's important for kids to know they're good enough, they're smart enough and they're OK and not as strange as they might think they are.’”
Jarbo grew up thinking, “I’m a weirdo kid that no one can relate to,” an experience that shaped the kind of rapper he became.
“I was the kid who was reading comic books and video game magazines, sticking them inside of sports magazines to not get picked on by bullies in school,” he says. “Luckily, now kids can be into comics, anime, manga, all that stuff and get less pushback. But it was tough in the '80s growing up and being into that stuff.”
Looking back, he realizes he wasn’t such a weirdo after all.
“But at that time, I didn't know,” he says. “So I wanted to make sure these kids understood. No matter how weird you may think you are, there's someone else going through the exact same thing in a completely different part of the country or the world. And it's OK.”
It’s Jarbo’s hope that parents also learn a thing or two while playing “Buddy’s Magic Toy Box” for their children.
“I wanted to make sure to sprinkle some tidbits of knowledge in there that maybe the kid won't get,” he says.
“I think that's what's so awesome about a lot of children's material, is they remember that the audience is the adult who buys it for the kid as well. So there will be moments that if you're paying attention, you can learn something, too.”
Mega Ran didn't want to be seen as corny
The biggest challenge Jarbo faced in making his first children’s album was getting past the fear of people thinking what he’d done was somehow corny.
“I didn't want to be called corny,” he says.
“So in the back of my mind, I was fighting that. But then I realized it's OK to be a little corny. Because you kind of have to be. I thought about my life as a teacher and how I used to jump around in front of the kids to get them to understand fractions and things like that. It’s the same thing.”
That fear of being corny took him back to how he felt as an aspiring rapper growing up in Philadelphia at a time when the prevailing wisdom was that rappers should be tough and cool and maybe not rapping so much about video games and comic books.
He’d gotten over that fear by the time he emerged a nerdcore hero on the rise with the “Mega Ran” album.
“I felt like I'd shed all those inhibitions,” he says. “And then when it came to make a children's album, they all came back to me. Like, what if people laugh at you? What if people think you're just not good at this?
"I had fights with myself that I hadn't had since I first started making music. So it's definitely been challenging.”
In the end, he managed to convince himself it didn’t matter if some people thought his children’s album was a little corny.
“If you please yourself, then you already won,” he says. “If I have fun, if these songs make me smile, if they make my kid bob his head, that's good enough for me. I really, really love the record. I stand by it.”
Mega Ran release show at Musical Instrument Museum
When: 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 12.
Where: Musical Instrument Museum, 4725 E. Mayo Blvd., Phoenix.
Admission: Included with museum admission ($10-$20).
Details: 480-478-6000, mim.org.
Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mega Ran shares the tale behind the nerdcore rapper's children's album
