Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s ‘Growing Up’ and 9 Other Rap Songs About Fatherhood
Hip-hop fans have become accustomed to rappers boasting about their cars, bank accounts, and flings, so it’s refreshing when they take on more substantive topics like parenthood.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis were praised this week for their new song, “Growing Up (Sloane’s Song),” in which Macklemore anticipates the joys and insecurities of becoming a new father. He and wife Tricia Davis welcomed their first child together, daughter Sloane Ava Simone, in May.
Below, see our list of 10 rap songs, including “Growing Up,” that showcase a more heartwarming side of the genre’s tough guys.
10. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - “Growing Up” feat. Ed Sheeran (2015)
Known for saturating their music with rich lyrical content, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis uphold their tradition with this track released on Aug. 5. The touching song reveals the Seattle rapper’s concerns about work-life balance. “I just want to be a good dad,” he raps. “Will I be? I have no idea.” He does express his desire to raise a grounded child. “For your sweet 16, you get a bus pass,” he raps. The single artwork features an image of Macklemore holding Sloane’s tiny hand.
9. Eminem - “Hailie’s Song” (2002)
Though Eminem often references his daughter Hailie in his music, he devoted an entire song to her on his fourth album, The Eminem Show. On the track “Hailie’s Song,” Em credits his precious child with motivating him during hard times. The Detroit MC trades his usual abrasiveness for endearing lyrics like “I see my baby and suddenly I’m not crazy.” In 1999, he told Yahoo Music that Hailie helped keep him out of trouble. “I realize that no matter how crazy I act onstage or how wild I may get, there’s got to be a limit,” he said. “I have to be here for her.”
8. The Game - “Like Father Like Son” feat. Busta Rhymes (2005)
The Game’s fans have come to expect musical tributes to his kids that date back to his 2005 Aftermath debut, The Documentary. On “Like Father Like Son,” the Compton rapper gives the play-by-play details of the day his eldest child, Harlem Caron, was born, chronically everything from receiving the phone call that his girlfriend was in labor, running down the hospital hallways, and cutting the umbilical chord: “11:57 / A soldier is born / He’s flesh of my flesh / Young Harlem Caron.”
7. Kanye West - “Only One” feat. Paul McCartney (2015)
If it’s true that Kanye West has been a lot happier since marrying Kim Kardashian, he’s been beaming since birth of their first child, North. Kanye fawns over his adorable toddler on this track and in its accompanying minimalistic music video. The visual simply captures father and daughter taking a playful walk in the woods, as the rap star offers an Auto-Tuned ode about his late mother smiling down on them from heaven.
6. Will Smith - “Just the Two of Us” (1997)
“Just the Two of Us” ranks among the sweetest rap songs ever, even aside from the father-to-son focus. As one of the singles from the legendary Philadelphia MC’s solo debut, Big Willie Style, Smith shares sentiments relatable to any young father as he serenades his eldest son, Trey, and caresses the belly of wife Jada Pinkett Smith, who was pregnant at the time with their son Jaden. About Trey, Will raps: “I try to be a tough dad, but you be making me laugh.” However, the song’s heaviest lyric is one that blended families would appreciate: He assures Trey that while his parents may be divorced, he “was conceived in love.”
5. Xzibit - “The Foundation” (1996)
Xzibit covers all bases on “The Foundation,” essentially an open letter to his son that appears on his 1996 debut, At the Speed of Life. The Pimp My Ride host and MC advises his child to be cautious of police brutality, be selective when choosing girlfriends, make wise financial decisions, and avoid the traps of fake friends. The video depicts Xzibit imparting the wisdom to his son over the years and ends at his own funeral. In an eerie final scene, Xzibit portrays both the father in the casket and his son who grew up to look just like him.
4. Nas - “Daughters” (2012)
What’s especially cool about Nas’s “Daughters,” a song that chronicles his experiences raising a daughter, is that the hip-hop luminary’s concerns mirror that of most fathers rearing a millennial teen girl. In the song and video, Nas ponders how his player lifestyle may have influenced his daughter’s choices in men (she’s writing letters to a man in jail), polices what his daughter posts on her social media pages, and weighs the pro and cons of private and public schooling. The song even suggests that playboy fathers experience karma: “God gets us back, he makes us have precious little girls.”
3. Jay Z - “Glory” feat. B.I.C. (2012)
To describe Jay Z as a proud father would be an understatement. Just two days after the Jan. 15, 2012 birth of Blue Ivy, his first child with wife Beyoncé, the Roc Nation honcho released the song “Glory” that conveys the pleasures of fatherhood. Over a soft, knocking ballad produced by the Neptunes, Jay Z thanks God for a “younger, smarter, faster me,” reveals that Beyoncé experienced a miscarriage with a previous pregnancy, and pays his child a major compliment: “Baby, I paint the sky blue / My greatest creation was you.” The track even features the audio recordings of Blue’s voice. Glorious, indeed.
2. Ed O.G. & Da Bulldogs - “Be a Father to Your Child” (1991)
This is arguably the most important rap song dealing with the subject of absentee fathers. While most of the raps addressing the topic are written in the first person, “Be a Father to Your Child” is more of an anthem, a call to action for men neglecting their responsibilities. The music video is mostly set in a hospital filled with young expectant mothers. Over a jazzy track, Ed offers matter-of-fact advice: “If you did it / Admit it / And stick with it / Don’t say it’s not yours.”
1. Common - “Retrospect for Life” feat. Lauryn Hill (1997)
Common made a bold, vulnerable statement when he released the lead track from his third album, One Day It’ll All Make Sense. He opened up about contemplating aborting a child, and created an accompanying music video that showed him struggling to make a decision and how the child’s life would be if he left the mother to be a single parent. The powerful message, featuring a moving chorus from Lauryn Hill, fortunately has a happy ending, but it definitely provokes thought for anyone facing similar predicament.
