Good news for “Adults, Kids, Nerds, Dweebs, Geeks, music lovers, hip hop heads, science fiction people, parents and all in between”: Questlove just released his very first children’s book – which would be noteworthy enough already, given the Oscar-winning drummer’s and music chronicler’s renowned taste. But there‘s an even deeper, more personal aspect to it. As Questloves puts it: „It’s the book I wish I had as a kid.“ A, quote, ‘Alt-Black kid’, to be more precise.
“The Rhytm of Time” tells the story of music nerd Rahim Reynolds and science geek Kasia Collins and their shared love of music and history. When Kasia send Rahim to a concert of his favorite group through a time-portal, he gets stuck in the year 1997 while Kasia herself gets involved in other trouble in the here and now. A teenage music-obsessed oddball from Philly as one of the protagonists? Sounds utterly familiar, especially when Quest remembers reading books at a young age:
Oftentimes, I’d pick books in which I didn’t see myself, per se. There’s a term like ‘Alt-Black kids‘, where you might not talk the right language or you just look weird. Or like I have weird hair and I dress weird. I want black nerds to see themselves [in books] as well.
Questlove in an interview on The View
Hence written ‘for kids who don’t necessarily see themselves in the mediums that entertain them’, the book is adding new perspectives on blackness and challenges the notion of what ‘cool’ means – and suggests children that the latter doesn’t necessarily equate popularity. More like the other way round.
For more insights on the book, check out Questlove’s interview below with Whoopi Goldberg and her colleagues which also touches on the topics of overcoming self-doubts, full-filling the dreams of Quest’s inner child and more:
