All I could think was a sippy cup of gin and juice. So I've got to tell you, finding out "It's Hip Hop Baby" was just a bunch of kids bouncing around playing Simon Says and shaking their sillies out on a TV screen has definitely made me more "laid back."
A riff off of the old Sesame Street interstitials of kids dancing around onscreen to get your kids off their feet, "It's Hip Hop Baby" is less Baa, Baa, Black Sheep . . . more Bump, Bump, Shake That Little Booty. The thirty-minute video - one of a series of several in the works from producer Candi Carter - is still focused on kids, but they're trying to get away from the same old, same old kid music.
Does it work? The kids like it - my daughter was furiously trying to master "head, shoulders, knees and toes." She was getting close when they threw in the "eyes, ears, mouth and nose" bit. The stars are regular off-the-street kids with the kinds of goofy grins and silly stories that have been making these kinds of videos wholesome entertainment for years. So "It's Hip Hop Baby" is fun for kids, and a nice change of pace for parents to boot.
But it's not really hip hop - no, not even the Dre and Snoop beats without the lyrics. Would parents really want hip hop for their kids at this age - the series is promoted for kids ages two to six? Lyrics removed, I could see more of a hip hop influence to the sound getting them moving - if it works in the club on a bunch of drunk teen and twenty-somethings, why wouldn't it work on a bunch of toddlers?
Maybe that's the next mashup to take YouTube by storm . . . Lil Wayne does it lil kid style.
Image: It's Hip Hop Baby
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