We follow up a rave review of the new album by Glen Henry (aka Beleaf Melanin), In Fatherhood, with an interview of the artist and popular YouTube dad.

Q: You are big on collaborating with friends and family. In the closing song “Baby Daddy,” you speak to the adage “it takes a village” in parenting, but what does that mean to you in terms of creating art?

Beleaf/Glen Henry: It’s important to come in with a team. I definitely don’t think we were meant to do things alone. I think we can but it’s best to do them as a tribe. A part of a bigger village that’s basically open to changing the world.

I started out as a DJ and that means I was support for an MC. And then I became the hype man. And then I started rapping. So, I’ve never really been alone, or … been able to produce my own thoughts exclusively so the collective and being part of a team  … makes the most sense. I like to use people who have very little exposure or not as much as me. That way I’m elevating them and not just calling the biggest rappers I know to my support.

Q: How has the early reception of In Fatherhood been?

Beleaf/Glen Henry: Early reception of the album has been positive. And I say “positive” and not “good” because most of the people who’ve listened to the album have been other rappers and there’s always this, like, unmentioned competition. You know, kind of looking at you sideways-type, like, “Let me try to find something wrong with this.” So, instead of saying a song is bad or … that they love the song, they’ll say, “Hey, this seems like it wasn’t mastered as good as the other ones.” … It’s so much competition it’s hard to find real feedback. Now from all of my friends who’ve heard it … I think because some of the lyrics [and] some of the flows are so complex for the regular ear, they might have to go back and listen to it again.

Q: Let’s talk about the well-documented misconception of the absent black father. Your flow, heck your entire being, runs counter-current to that faulty narrative. Do you think about that and actively try to disprove it in your family life, faith and music?

Beleaf/Glen Henry: I think being a black father in the current time is something that I think about a lot. I often know that I have to disprove it but it’s not something I’m doing on purpose. You know, my very existence is counter … even me being alive at this age and doing something like what I’m doing on YouTube and hip hop and actually making money off of it is already like, “Oh, you’re successful.”

I think right now what I’m doing is giving proof to all the other people out there that didn’t know it was possible. I think a large group of black women watch my content because it shows them that we [present black fathers] really exist out here. You know what I’m sayin’? Or, what they already have at home in their husband.

I go to a predominately white church. It’s diverse but it’s predominately white and so just me being there, like, I have to be, kind of the guy who people aren’t afraid to talk to and ask very stupid questions of. I have to be, you know, for the culture, I am leading the way and so I’m making it easier for my kids and so I put up with a lot more. I let people get away with a lot more because I understand that I am a leader and I’m making it easier for my sons and my daughter and any other black father coming behind me or who is around me currently. So, I think about it but I don’t … do it on purpose which means since I’m a leader, I have a lot less freedom.

Q: How involved are you in your church community and does that ever prove challenging, as far as being a hip-hop artist, by way of the stigma inherent in either?

Beleaf/Glen Henry: My church community … it’s just, like, you know, my squad. I have a “life group,” a group of eight couples that we’re really close with. We do all our holidays together. We meet weekly and kind of have Bible Study … [sometimes] it’s just us hangin’ out, just reminding each other that it’s hard sometimes and that we love each other and just praying for each other. I host that life group and then I help with a podcast for the church and video for the church. Me and my pastor are like best friends. Really close. He’s actually my kids’ goddad and so I’m really involved in the community at church. But, it’s not like it’s any different than just friends.

There’s no challenge to me doing hip-hop and me being in church. They are very receptive to my art and my talent and my skill. They don’t make me rap on Sundays. They don’t use me as the hip-hop prop or gimmick. It’s just kind of like one of those things where it’s like, “Hey, if we need a nice voiceover, can you do it for us?” And I’m like, “Sure.” You know, that type of thing. … I don’t know how well hip-hop fits in a worship setting. It’s not like the two worlds really collide that much but if I do need support or I’m throwing a show or something like that I usually have as much ability as I need or resources as I need from the church.

Q: What is your definition of a “modern dad”?

Beleaf/Glen Henry: To me, being a modern dad means being very versatile in your settings. Because children … and we are a lot more exposed to things, I feel like to be modern just means to be of the time and so that means that I can exist and be open to a lot of conversations so as a Christian dad, I can still do community and have a conversation with a gay dad, you know?

To be a modern father means to be woke in a sense. It also means to be overall present in the day-to-day of my children and in the day-to-day of my community. It means that I’m a pillar. It means that what I do reflects the community and I have the ability to change my entire community.

Q: On the album’s final track, “Baby Daddy,” you say you are “leaving hip hop to become a storyteller.” So if so, what’s next?

Beleaf/Glen Henry: I really want to start writing. I hope that this album proves how good of a writer I am and that maybe I could ghostwrite for some people. Maybe I could write some songs. I want to get residual income but I don’t wanna leave home. I want to be able to make money off of music and use my ability to song-write and give that to other people and let them use that as a part of their arsenal. So, essentially adding value to the community by putting good music out there.

In addition, I’m really excited about the YouTube venture that I’ve been doing and how open the community is right now. So I want to move forward with that in a major way and give a lot more diversity to the platform as a whole. What that means is me becoming within the top 15 percent of YouTubers and being a really successful brand that can basically tell people where we’re moving as a culture. That type of success is … when you’re leading within the culture … whether it’s blogging or whatever, you have the power to give people input and basically tell people how we’re moving. That’s pretty much incomparable to any song I’ve ever written. So what I’m seeing with the YouTube thing is a lot more freedom and not so many rules. We’re making up the rules as we go because it’s such a new platform and I say new meaning 10 years old.

I want to be the guy writing songs in my spare time. Making videos in my spare time. Putting those things up at my leisure. I want to travel with my family and I want us to go places where I get paid to speak and tell people stories about what fatherhood, what family, and what love could look like if we focus on forgiveness and so I’m learning this myself as I have issues with my own parents. Really, what fatherhood really taught me is more about patience with your parents and all that stuff. I’m learning more about being a man by being a father and so fatherhood has turned me more into a student than anything else.

The modern fatherhood space can seem, well, academic, at times. Overly disciplined, sterile. Whitewashed, even.

Then, seemingly out of the blue, a hip-hop album drops, and a breathtakingly talented dad emerges to the forefront to remind us that fatherhood advocacy isn’t always squeaky-clean academia and the face of it, most certainly, isn’t always white.

That album is In Fatherhood. That dad is Beleaf Melanin.

And, perhaps unbeknownst even to him, he has just penned fatherhood’s National Anthem in the form of an elaborate conceit, woven around a singular euphonious narrative, stretched expertly across 17 tracks of the illest hip hop I’ve been treated to in quite some time.

U-N-I-T-Y is what spell unity
Jamaica all my jewelry
‘Cause I’ll only rep what’s in my community
Matter fact, play this after my eulogy

– Beleaf, “Tribe”

Beleaf, whose last studio album, 2014’s Red Pills + Black Sugar, received some acclaim, isn’t on his first fatherhood rodeo. He has chronicled his own brand of active and engaged involvement with his three kids on his gorgeous Beleaf In Fatherhood YouTube series since 2015. But fatherhood, in particular the recent birth of his first daughter, did change something profound in him, and it is apparent in his new music.

On In Fatherhood, Beleaf latest places a larger emphasis on family, immediate and extended, and the need for holding up one another despite seemingly unfair share of trials and tribulations.

I throw a snowball at a snowman
Frostbit on both hands
I bow down to no man
That’s ice on ice violence
I SE’LICE (SLICE) a sky’s silence,
Avalanche your native land
I’m Abraham, I found a ram
up in that thicket
sick til’ the kids say lit.
That look like that hurt.
Put some ice on that

— Beleaf, “No Chill”

Though he whimsically interlaces In Fatherhood with light-hearted interludes about the internet offering him a bevy of unsolicited parenting advice, an angry voicemail from an ex-girlfriend, and other pleasantly deft digressions, a la De La Soul’s 3 Feet High And Rising, he is earnest and edgy in his hip-hop prosody. He means what he says and says what he means and no biters, haters, or online beraters are ever going to dissuade him.

I wrote myself a lullaby so I could sleep
But I don’t sleep on
Chocolate babies urinated
Tempurpedics get peed on
Up and at ‘em, 3 am
I caught it all on C-A-M
You laugh at me when I’m pooped on
But diapers look like Grey Poupon

– Beleaf, “Lightweight”

Don’t get it twisted. That verse above is hardly parody. This isn’t a one-off internet dad rapper being funny atop a found beat. This is his story and life and to be able to nimbly spin it into verse is beyond noteworthy. It’s genius.

In fact, “Lightweight” is quite possibly my favorite of the bunch on In Fatherhood. It has an undeniable “he’s not heavy, he’s my brother,” vibe, but in the obvious context of his kids. There’s a cadence and tone to it as if it is answering a charge. When I hear it and its tale of the trials of fatherhood and family life, I can’t help think about the erroneous-yet-pervasive notion of “the absent or uninvolved black father.”

You’re Okay
No one told me it’d be this good
No one said I’d have this much fun with you
They all told me about the hard times
But they said nothin’ about the miracles
Look, it’s all good
No matter what you may do
It’s all good

— Beleaf, “You’re Okay”

Grab a tissue or a baby wipe or whatever you have handy because you’re going to need it. “You’re Okay” is not merely an earworm. It’s a soul Cydnidae. It’s a love song to a son, a ballad for a baby girl. It’s the anthem for “Everyfather.” It’s the ultimate expression of a modern dad’s love for his offspring. Fatherhood organizations should be clamoring to license it as the soundtrack to all things paternal.

My car got stolen the other day
And I blame the devil
I’m feeling like a mountain
Tribulations like a pebble
Talk to God on my behalf
If you could fit that in your schedule
Your boy needs some sleep
The baby screaming like a kettle

— Beleaf, “Protect Ya’ Life”

Beleaf is a dedicated Christian man who joyfully wears his spirituality on the sleeve. But this is not “God Rock.” These aren’t mumble rapping, ass slapping, lazily looped club bangers. It’s an intentional, symphonic call-back to the age of real MCs: an age when artful wordsmiths like Souls Of Mischief, Mos Def, De La Soul, and Digable Planets crafted dynamic metaphors and employed compelling poetic constructs in an effort to “bring the ruckus.” In Fatherhood exemplifies that same feel because of Beleaf’s acrobatic lyricism and how his every sentiment settles expertly into the dips and vicissitudes of the music.

This is REAL hip hop. In Fatherhood is the way, the truth, and the life and a downright deluge in an obvious drought.

Editor’s Note: San Francisco Dads Group co-organizer Mike Heenan recently interviewed David Shaw, head football coach at Stanford University, as part of Dove Men+Care’s “Care Always Wins” campaign.

Stanford University’s head football coach and consummate family man David Shaw has been highly decorated in his short four-year tenure. He earned two straight Pac-12 titles and two Pac-12 Coach of the Year awards after taking over in 2011 for Jim Harbaugh, who left to become head coach of the San Francisco 49ers.

Shaw receives almost as much attention for his commitment and contributions to Stanford’s culture of academic excellence as well as his coaching strategies. Stanford’s football team consistently ranks near the top of the NCAA’s Division I in player graduation rates — sometimes as high as 90 percent – while several powerhouse football programs graduate players at rates as low as 50 percent. It takes a caring coach to foster such an exemplary environment around his football program.

City Dads Group recently chatted with Shaw about this, his life as a dad, and his involvement in Dove Men+Care’s “Care Always Wins” campaign … and even learned a little about his plans should the NFL come knocking on his door.

City Dads Group: As a Bay Area resident and father, I am a true fan of not just your innumerable successes with the Stanford football program, but of your character in general, both on and off the field. Perhaps you can start by telling me about the Dove Men+Care “Care Always Wins” initiative and why it’s important to you?

David Shaw: The “Care Always Wins” campaign has been phenomenal, especially the way they are recognizing coaches who are fostering a winning environment, so it’s not just the winning and losing but the lessons learned from the game of football. Dove Men+Care is recognizing the coach’s role in easing the frustrations that arise in sports and providing an environment for young people to grow and learn all of the great lessons that team sports teach, much like Dove Men+Care deodorant eases irritation so people can be at their best and be productive. I love the fact that they’re recognizing coaches that are in the profession for the right reasons; helping young people learn and grow.

City Dads Group: What makes a caring coach?

David Shaw: To me it’s about a coach that recognizes all of the things that lead to being successful. By that I’m not just talking about football. I’m talking about things on and off the field, so … once again I talk a lot about the environment here at Stanford. Providing an environment where young people know how hard they need to work, … have goals and aspirations, and push towards those goals and aspirations and realize that there are going to be bumps in the road and we need to handle those bumps in the road and keep our eyes fixed on what’s important and keep working on those, realizing that you’ve got people around you that are depending on you and that you can depend on so that you can accomplish great things as a team.

City Dads Group: How can the non-athlete, non-coach out there get involved in “Care Always Wins”?

David Shaw: You can visit dovemencare.com to learn about the “Caring Coach of the Year Award.” You’ll be able to see stories that people submit and be able to see the winners and hear their stories about why they were nominated and why they won. It’s a positive, uplifting thing to look at … there are a lot of people out there that are doing it the right way. I really appreciate Dove Men+Care recognizing those coaches that are doing it the right way.

City Dads Group: I’m sure you take great pride in the fact that your football team is always toward the very top in NCAA Division I player graduation rates. If colleges are supposed to be academic institutions first and foremost, how do coaches like yourself contribute to a culture of academic success?

David Shaw: I think that’s been part of the reason why we’ve gotten so much [recognition] over the last few years for being as good as we have been in football. We’re trying to knock down that stigma that you have to lower the academic requirements of your university to have a good football team. It’s been our thing all along that you don’t have to and you shouldn’t have to. You shouldn’t, period. So, not only can you push for great students coming out of high school, you can push them to be great college students while you’re pushing them to be great football players or great student athletes. Really our big thing is never having to choose between being good at one or the other.

City Dads Group: You played wide receiver at Stanford under head coach Bill Walsh, a three-time Super Bowl champion when he ran the 49ers and a veritable deity around the San Francisco Bay Area. Was he a caring coach?

David Shaw: Oh, there’s no question. … You hear the same things (from others who played for him) about how Bill was a perfectionist but how he would also go back behind and spend extra time with certain guys and make sure that their family was doing OK and see if there was something that he could do from his position to get you into a position to be successful. He was my first mentor in my profession. Here’s this Hall Of Fame football coach who’s gonna go do TV and all of these (other) things that Bill was getting his hands on and he gave me his cell phone number and said, “Hey, if you ever need anything, call me.” I would talk to him every off-season and we would spend time together. Here’s a guy that would go out of his way … and I thought it was just me but he was doing that for a lot of different coaches and players and even people in business. Here’s a guy that wanted OTHER people to be successful and I will always appreciate him for that.

City Dads Group: After your immense and immediate success as Stanford’s head coach, winning two conference titles and two Coach of the Year awards, this has obviously not been your best season. How do you handle adversity with your student athletes and coach them to persevere and overcome?

David Shaw: We talk about “natural results.” If you don’t play your best, you will lose. And when you do lose, that’s when your true character shows. How do you respond? Do you respond by sulking? Do you respond by finger-pointing? Or do you respond by saying, “Hey, ya know, I made mistakes. You made mistakes. We made mistakes. Let’s go back out there and finish this and improve on those things that we haven’t done well and still go back next game and try to give it our best.” Our practices have been great. Our meetings have been great. Guys have great attitudes about pushing forward because you cannot live life in the rearview mirror. What’s happened has happened and we’ve got games in front of us so let’s do our best in these games that we have remaining.

City Dads Group: There’s nothing cooler than being a dad unless maybe it’s being a dad whose own dad was an NFL coach. Is a lineage of coaching excellence in your family? Would you say your dad was a caring coach and did he ever coach you?

David Shaw: No, he never coached me, specifically, although he was on staff when I was at Stanford. But I know that he was (a caring coach) because I run into people all the time that he coached with or former athletes that he coached and they talk about how much better he made them as players and as people and the lessons that he taught them about how to be a professional and how to do things well and not just rely on talent but how to work hard and how to do things together. A lot of those lessons those guys learned they have taken into their business lives after they’re done playing football and they truly appreciate my dad for teaching those lessons.

City Dads Group: Not only are you a storied and decorated football coach but you get to be a life coach for your own kids. What are some of the biggest life lessons you have instilled or hope to instill in them?

David Shaw: As we all know, the big thing is that life is going to throw you curveballs and trying to get my children to understand that. You have goals, you have aspirations, you have things that you want to do, but when you get one of those curveballs and something unexpected or something negative happens to you or around you let’s respond in a positive manner. Let’s respond to negativity with positivity. Let’s keep a positive outlook. Let’s make the lives of people around us better by our attitude and by our work so a lot of it is positive affirmation but also a lot of preparation for life. There are going to be a lot of things that come up in life that are not positive but you can handle them in a positive manner.

City Dads Group: What is more challenging, being a football coach or being a dad?

David Shaw: Yes! (Laughing.) Both are connected but very different, you know, because you get so close with the student athletes and you want them to be so successful and you hurt when they hurt and you are excited when they have success but it is so similar to being a father. You want such good things for your children and you try to be a good example but at the same time you also want them to be their own people and you want to support them and love them and care for them. So, yeah, they are both very, very trying at times.

City Dads Group: If there is a head coaching vacancy on the 49ers staff in the future and they come knocking on your door, is that a knock you are prepared to answer? A job you are willing to take in the tradition of fellow greats like Bill Walsh and Jim Harbaugh?

David Shaw: Ha. I think I’ve been very consistent here that I plan on being at Stanford for a long time and I really enjoy my time here and my wife loves it here and I think we’re still in the process of building here at Stanford, so I’m pretty good where I am, thank you.