Is hip hop poetry?

Yes and YES.

I never thought I'd be using Talib Kweli to teach my kids about rhyme, repetition and alliteration. But that's what I'm doing tomorrow, audio/video and all (my street in Harlem where I live is actually in his music video and so is the 1 train - the train the kids and I take every day to/from school...talk about text-to-self connections).

Excuse me for a second while I pat myself on the back for making this poetry unit something they're invested in and can connect with.

In the future, when you hear about a really popular hip hop/spoken word group called Young Fresh Kids, you should know that it all started in Room 100 in the Bronx in Ms. S' class.

Word.