MILWAUKEE — It all started as a way to offer fun and family-friendly content to people as we were a month into the coronavirus pandemic. A few million views later, Milwaukee rapper, Wes Tank, has his very own show on the kids streaming service, KidoodleTV.
It's called StoryRaps. Tank, along with his production team headed by friend and producer Kurt Ravenwood, blends old school hip-hop with classic literature to create a truly unique form of storytelling.
"Making a story that was written pre-1924 relevant today that's my favorite part," Wes Tank, the creator of StoryRaps said.
If my career as a journalist doesn't work out, I could always turn to rap #bars pic.twitter.com/17IUkaAloW
— James Groh (@JamesGroh_) August 19, 2020
Tank and his team take a traditional fairy tale, like Goldilocks, and modernize it with 21st-century themes. They write lyrics and create illustrations to make fun and engaging music videos.
At the beginning of August, StoryRaps officially announced that it had partnered with KidoodleTV. It's a streaming service specifically for kids' programming. Tank's whimsical yet modern raps were the ideal type of content KidoodleTV was looking for.
"First folks that they said, 'hey we want you to make something exclusive to KidoodleTV. We have never done this before, but we believe in what you do, and we want to get into original content,'" StoryRaps producer Kurt Ravenwood said.
StoryRaps comes at a unique time in the world. Stressed-out parents needed safe and clean content for their kids as the parents juggled raising children, doing their own jobs, and playing teacher since some schools are closed.
"(I have) a lot of empathy for the kids who are going into a really weird school year or a really different school year than they’ve ever had to before. We're really just thinking of those people, and we want to create stuff that is going to help them out," Tank said.
All this wouldn't have been possible if Tank didn't put out his first Dr. Seuss rap video. The Milwaukee rapper combined the iconic children's books with hardcore beats by Dr. Dre. They went surprisingly well together. He got millions of views on those videos which attracted the attention of KidoodleTV.
You can watch all of Tank's StoryRaps free on KidoodleTV.
