151: The Alphabet Rockers with Kaitlin McGaw and Tommy Shepherd

The band The Alphabet Rockers consists of lead members Kaitlin McGaw and Tommy Shepherd, and a multi-racial group of children who are also involved in writing and performing.  They write about their real lived experiences and their desire to live in a world where everyone belongs. Kaitlin and Tommy are actually fellows at the Othering and Belonging Institute, run by Dr. jon powell, whose work I really respect and whom we interviewed in the episode on othering. They also do work in schools - in an hour-long program they work with a class to compose a song, which gives children the experience not just of songwriting, but of truly being heard and having their ideas respected. Kaitlin and Tommy have now written a children's book called You Are Not Alone, which we discussed in the episode - along with a host of other juicy topics related to parenting...and racism...and White supremacy...   Jump to highlights 01:37 Introducing the guest speakers 04:45 Each song has its journey 14:30 The importance of centering children's experience in creating a culture of belonging 19:30 Practices that are intentionally brought into your family or practices that you have let go of in your family   [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen Lumanlan  00:02 Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We all want our children to lead fulfilling lives, but it can be so   Jenny  00:10 do you get tired of hearing the same old interests to podcast episodes? I don't really But Jen thinks you might. I'm Jenny, a listener from Los Angeles, testing out a new way for listeners to record the introductions to podcast episodes. There's no other resource out there quite like Your Parenting Mojo, which doesn't just tell you about the latest scientific research on parenting and child development but puts it in context for you as well, so you can decide whether and how to use this new information. I listen because parenting can be scary and it's reassuring to know what the experts think. If you'd like to get new episodes in your inbox, along with a free infographic on 13 reasons your child isn't listening to you and what to do about each one. Sign up at YourParentingMojo.com/subscribe. You can also join the free Facebook group to continue the conversation. Over time you might get sick of hearing me read this intro so come and record one yourself. You can read from a script Jen provided or have some real fun with it and write your own. Just go to YourParentingMojo.com/RecordTheIntro. I can't wait to hear yours   Jen Lumanlan  01:33 Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. Today we are going to do something I think that we've never done before. I don't believe we have had Grammy-nominated people on the show before so I'm excited for that. We are welcoming Tommy Shepherd and Caitlin McGraw who are co-creators of the Grammy nominated Alphabet Rockers and they have quickly become an important voice for today's youth curating content centered on children's voices and social justice issues like racism and gender inclusion. Their Grammy-nominated album “Rise Shine #Woke” inspired kids to stand up to hate and they have a second Grammy-nominated album “Love” which lifts up the voices of trans-two-spirit and gender nonconforming communities. They recently received a third Grammy nomination for “Shine” (melanin remix) featured on all one tribe, which is nominated for a best children's album. And now they've now written a picture book called You Are Not Alone, which empowers kids to love themselves and their identities stand up to hate, and have each other's backs no matter what. And the book looks at how children can feel others because of their race, gender, culture, and other factors and how they can navigate discrimination, and find strengths from their friends and allies. Welcome, Tommy and Kaitlin, so great to have you here.   Tommy  02:39 Thank you happy to be here.   Kaitlin 02:42 Let's go   Jen Lumanlan  02:41 All right, so I think the first thing that struck me when I was listening to your work is there are not so many intergenerational bands out there. How did you get started? And why did you choose music as your mechanism to get these ideas out into the world?   Kaitlin 02:55 Yeah, well, we had been working in the schools independently and when we came together with alphabet rockers initially, actually, it was, you know, kind of subversive, we knew that hip hop was a cultural space for belonging, actually, and for expression. And so we were bringing hip hop into the schools in a way that we felt really served all children and quickly realized that articulating and being very specific with the adults about what inclusion is required all framework, so we shifted our mission statement, and since 2015 we have been making music intentionally that makes change. So each song holds a question that our children pose to us that we see as community agents for change and we work in community to kind of find a musical response and heart-centered space to share.   Jen Lumanlan  03:48 And so we're here with the two of you today, but you are not the entirety of Alphabet Rockers, right? Yes, I should make that clear for folks who don't know you.   Tommy  03:55 Sure, yeah. We have a huge team who we are really about our collectivity, a lot of minds come together to conceptualize a lot of minds coming together to actually hold down the business part of things. We have a team that really is about keeping us on our toes with our affirmations and with our [unintelligible]. And we have team members that are also leading like Caitlin and I and other youngsters they lead you know, and leadership changes and leadership actually a thing that we really thrive on because we play follow the follower most of the time.   Jen Lumanlan  04:29 Yeah, and so when we're watching an Alphabet Rockets recording, one of the things that we see most of, is children right? It’s children singing and often singing about themselves and how they show up in the world. How does that all work?   Kaitlin 04:42 It's a great question for each song has their own journey. So some songs do hold private conversations we've had with kids and families. The song you are not alone, for example, was a private conversation with a transgendered boy who shared what inclusion would look like for him in school and he had written something on a wall. We do a lot of anonymous sharing as well, whether it be now virtually actually it works really well, kids can write their ideas into songs without us even knowing who wrote it. But at the time in person, he put it up and posted it on the wall and said, “I need friends that have my back note, even when I'm not in the room.” And it really, kind of like broke us open a little bit to look at what's the space we want to create for this child and with this child, because at that time, his family had done everything they could since he was a baby to, you know, kind of create the path forward together and they didn't have this piece, they didn't have the musical information that would say, “Okay, like, we know what the truth is in our hearts, we know what's right in our heads, and we don't have the spiritual connection, the culture to walk in where we can share with someone without articulating every piece of it.” And so that's kind of what we did is we wrote that story with him at the center and with his family at the center, and the song that came out of it was really about the world we want to live in. It may not exist yet, but we want to be in a world where your friends have your back, no matter what. It goes right into the book as well. It's like we just published a book by that name too, You're Not Alone, where it's like, “Oh, look, you know, they don't say my name correct at school but my friend always corrects people,” and we're looking for that, we're looking for that bravery from any age, not just.   Tommy  06:24 And the really interesting part about it is that the young people you've heard sing the songs are singing from their perspectives, but it's from that perspective that Kaitlin is speaking of, they identified with these stories, and with these interviews that we had, they identify, so it almost seems like they are coming from their own perspectives, you're gonna get some of that this year, some of them like coming from their own perspectives this year, however, they really just identified with not being alone with knowing that they're not alone in these feelings, all of them.   Jen Lumanlan  06:55 Yeah, and I was watching last night, one of the videos on your website about the work that you've done in classrooms, and was just struck by how intentional the whole exercise...