Georgia Middle School Music Teacher is Suspended for Assigning Sixth-Graders Homework Featuring Rapper Kodak Black’s Explicit Lyrics
Valerie Edwards, Daily Mail, September 20, 2017
A Georgia middle school music teacher who assigned homework featuring rapper Kodak Black’s explicit lyrics has been suspended.
The exercise was assigned to Crishana Wright’s daughter, Kalani, and her sixth-grade class at Bethune Middle School.
According to Kalani, the students were supposed to take the rap lyrics, that came from A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie’s song ‘Drowning’ which features Kodak Black, and come up with their own positive words.
Wright told WSB-TV that her daughter brought home the worksheets that contained multiple expletives, violence and sexually suggestive lyrics, on Tuesday.
Kodak Black’s lyrics were featured in the assignment: ‘Just bought a brand new chain from Avianne/N***a with attitude but I ain’t from Compton/Lil Kodak b***h I’m Polo’d down like Carlton/Sniper Gang I put a n***a on a carton.’
The concerned mother said the assignment had no place in the classroom and ‘it was really against everything I try to teach them’.
‘I’m reading all these words and I immediately asked her why she had this and she said it was an assignment,’ Wright said.
Kalani said that she knew her ‘mom would be mad’ when she was handed the assignment at school.
Wright said she understands the purpose but noted that it wasn’t thought out. ‘You’re dealing with children’s minds; you have to be very cautious,’ Wright added.
The teacher wrote out an example of how the students should approach the assignment by taking A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie’s lyrics and turning them into positive words.
DeKalb County School District Superintendent R. Stephen Green said in a statement that the teacher was removed from the classroom and will be held accountable for ‘poor judgment’.
He said the district encourages teacher creativity, but instruction must be ‘age-appropriate’.
A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie collaborated with Kodak Black on the song Drowning that was released in March.
A Boogie’s lyrics became some of the hottest from any rap song released this year: ‘Wrist so icy, wonder why she like me, b***h I’m drownin’/In water, I just bought a Cuban, dipped it in a fountain.
‘Everywhere that I go it’s a light show, I’m surrounded/Bust down, bust down, bust down, bust down, bust down, b***h I’m drownin’.
The song handed the Bronx native his fourth platinum record last month.