18 Years of Rap for the High School Grads

Stanford Graduation

If you’re already done with the cap and gown thing or even if you’re still waiting out a secondary school career at Oakton, Walter Johnson, Madison or wherever high school, the hip-hop poets at Flocabulary want to present you with a very special graduation gift:  “18 years of rap for the high school grads.”

And using its internet video platform, Flocabulary magically serves up images from the most compelling stories of your life—so far.

From the end of apartheid (1994) and the debut of Dolly the sheep (1996) to the Mars landing (1997) and the tears at Columbine (1999), the pictures inspire as the lyrics recall what it’s been like to grow up from one century to the next.

But "when the two planes hit the two towers,” life changed in an instant.  “We invade Afghanistan, hunting Al Qaeda, But Bin Laden won’t get found ‘til later.”

The Last 18 Years in Rap comes to you from the same guys who do the weekly current events project, The Week in Rap. It’s meant for the classroom, and more than 15,000 schools use the digital subscription service to motivate students and teach language arts, math, social studies, and science.

The Flocabulary team promises to be around all summer with more headlines and rhymes.  But in the meantime, they offer a little advice:

“3.2 million high school graduates,

I hope you’re looking at the present, and you’re grabbing it,

‘Cause time passes in the blink of an eye,

When you look ahead, don't forget to look behind..."