Rapping Dinosaurs are cool!

Baby Loves Hip-Hop: Dino 5
Grade: Not really applicable.



Rapping Dinosaurs are cool!

Baby Loves Hip-Hop: Dino 5
Grade: Not really applicable.

When I was five years old, my favorite record was called “Dinosaurs.” It had a fairly simple premise: it featured five or six songs about different dinosaurs and their distinguishing characteristics, each song recorded in a different musical style. Traditional stuff mostly, nothing with any sort of edge to it. The b-side of the record even had instrumentals, presumably for kids to sing along too. Not that I ever did much singing: I mostly danced around my parent’s living room while listening to the record. I tended to do that a lot.

Dinosaur-based entertainment has long to been a sure-fire way to entertain and even educate kids. It can be cute, or overly cloying and obnoxious. But the kids always love it. So up steps semi-famous Baby Loves Music label, with their first foray into rap: baby Loves Hip-Hop: Dino 5. The project was created and written by a guy named Adam Hurwitz, and produced by Prince Paul, one of the five best hip-hop producers of all time. The album tells the tale of five friendly dino-kids who form a band to perform in their elementary school’s talent show. I feel a little weird reviewing a kid’s CD, but I was compelled to cop this sucker due to the involvement of Prince Paul. And I can’t say I was disappointed, despite the fact I’m 28 years too old for this album.

Prince Paul was really on top of things when he put this CD together. It’s easily digestable pre-school/kindergarten hip-hop. And while there’s no wacky Mickey Mouse or Johnny Cash samples, but Baby Loves Hip-Hop: Dino 5 sure in the heck SOUNDS like a Prince Paul record. On all of the concept albums/compilations Prince Paul has ever done, he’s always done a great job at plugging in the right MCs into the right “parts.” This album is no exception: Jurassic 5’s Chali 2nua is perfectly “cast” as MC T-Rex, while the other dino-friends are voiced by Wordsworth (who worked with Paul on his last kiddie-rap endeavor: a song on the Spongbob Squarepants Movie Soundtrack), Ladybug Mecca (formerly of the Digable Planets) and Scratch (human beat-box for the Roots). Dave and Posdnuos of De La Soul show up on a song. All of their vocal talents are all perfectly suited for a kids record; Chali has always sounded like a gentle T-Rex to me. Musically, it’s simple enough for a wee-one to follow, and gives the basics for the boom and the bap.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve listened to a kids’ record, and if course I can’t listen for four-year-old ears anymore, but content-wise, Baby Loves Hip-Hop: Dino 5 is cute and pretty innocuous. It preaches the basic lessons that parents want to teach four or five-year-olds: 1) don’t judge a book by its cover, 2) it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game, 3) wash your hands after using the bathroom. “That’s Funny” is a questionable inclusion, a pre-school ode to snapping; I’m not sure you want to teach a child that insulting people is a great source of humor. That comes along in the third grade or so. Regardless, with this Baby Loves Hip-Hop album, Hurwitz and Prince Paul have created a perfectly entertaining album that introduces hip-hop to children. If, God forbid, I ever sire any offspring, I’d play them this album.