Melle Mel Now Grandmaster of Children's Books and Professional Wrestling
Melle Mel talks about his new children's book "The Portal in the Park," which comes with a bonus CD of his rapped narration. he also briefly addresses his pro wrestling aspirations, tersely reported elsewhere as "Old Rapper Tries Out For WWE".
It teaches them self-awareness. A lot of kids go through certain emotions and, especially nowadays, they grow up quick and they don’t have time to catch up to how they feel about certain things. So, it’s all that confusion between growing up and handling confusion and handling fear. The book teaches them to adjust to that and deal with it... Right now, rap is way too negative. This book is proof that you can use rap for more than just describing what goes on in your neighborhood. I’m quite sure there are kids who are going to school in your neighborhood that have problems dealing with their emotions...
What else are you working on?
If the album and the book are successful, I’m going to try some professional wrestling. I went to a wrestling school called “Deep South Wrestling” during the summer and learned a few moves. I kind of like the whole vibe and the demographic in terms of the type of people you could reach. A wrestler’s audience is very diverse. It’s more or less branched out to the hip-hop field. One of the champs out there is a rapper so I figure if he can rap, then I can wrestle.
