{"id":22011,"date":"2018-01-02T17:03:18","date_gmt":"2018-01-02T22:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/?p=22011"},"modified":"2018-08-09T17:04:56","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T21:04:56","slug":"playing-columbus-vada-azeem-childrens-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/playing-columbus-vada-azeem-childrens-book\/","title":{"rendered":"PLAYING COLUMBUS: Rapper\/Activist Vada Azeem to Release Poignant Children&#8217;s Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vada Azeem is irrevocably tied to Columbus. After growing up on the Northeast side of the city, Azeem studied at the Columbus College of Art &amp; Design for a year, and then mentored youth at the Central Community House in Old Towne East (which you can support at no personal cost by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kroger.com\/topic\/kroger-community-rewards-3\">signing up for Kroger Community Rewards<\/a>) for longer. Azeem started rapping at 12, co-founded a hip hop collective at 23, dropped his first solo mixtape three years later, and now, he&#8217;s breaking into children&#8217;s books.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/339160700&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>The Boy Who Tried to Touch the Sun\u00a0<\/em>is inspired by Akeem&#8217;s experiences working with youth, the children&#8217;s books which comforted him as a child, and his own son, Peyton. It&#8217;s dedicated to Ty&#8217;re King, a 13-year-old boy who was shot and killed by Columbus police in September 2016. In it, Anu, a young black boy, is pushed into impossible tasks by a community of white people who are scared of his presence. In many ways, it&#8217;s a direct extension of Azeem&#8217;s work as an educator and mentor\u2013the book doesn&#8217;t shy away from difficult conversation, but greets it with empathy. Black children reading the book are greeted with a story of a child like them thriving despite the apparent impossibility of his situation. Along with writing the story, Azeem illustrated and colored each page with loose, deft strokes and brilliant color.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=&#8221;yes&#8221; overflow=&#8221;visible&#8221;][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=&#8221;1_1&#8243; background_position=&#8221;left top&#8221; background_color=&#8221;&#8221; border_size=&#8221;&#8221; border_color=&#8221;&#8221; border_style=&#8221;solid&#8221; spacing=&#8221;yes&#8221; background_image=&#8221;&#8221; background_repeat=&#8221;no-repeat&#8221; padding=&#8221;&#8221; margin_top=&#8221;0px&#8221; margin_bottom=&#8221;0px&#8221; class=&#8221;&#8221; id=&#8221;&#8221; animation_type=&#8221;&#8221; animation_speed=&#8221;0.3&#8243; animation_direction=&#8221;left&#8221; hide_on_mobile=&#8221;no&#8221; center_content=&#8221;no&#8221; min_height=&#8221;none&#8221;]<figure id=\"attachment_22012\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-22012\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-22012 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/boy-sun-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/boy-sun-1.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/boy-sun-1-324x259.jpg 324w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/boy-sun-1-416x333.jpg 416w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/boy-sun-1-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/boy-sun-1-768x614.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/boy-sun-1-177x142.jpg 177w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/boy-sun-1-200x160.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/boy-sun-1-400x320.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/boy-sun-1-600x480.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/boy-sun-1-800x640.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-22012\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">illustration by Vada Azeem<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n<p><em>The Boy Who Tried to Touch the Sun<\/em> was first unveiled at the Columbus Museum of Art last October, but this week it will be available for general purchase when Azeem reads at The Poet&#8217;s Lounge on Thursday, January 4th. Along with Azeem, this week The Poet&#8217;s Lounge will have desserts by The Happy Baker: a reminder that creative events are so often able to connect community members and businesses that otherwise might seem disparate. The event starts at 7:30\u2013but make sure to arrive early if you&#8217;d like to sign up for the open mic.[\/fusion_builder_column][\/fusion_builder_row][\/fusion_builder_container]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vada Azeem is irrevocably tied to Columbus. After growing up on the Northeast side of the city, Azeem studied at the Columbus College of Art &amp; Design for a year, and then mentored youth at the Central Community House in Old Towne East (which you can support at no personal cost by signing up for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":22018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6732,6690],"tags":[7117,7112,6695,7113,1437,7111,7114,7110],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/vada-azeem-press-shot.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22011"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22011"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24319,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22011\/revisions\/24319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}