Flocabulary Announces Winners of Second Black History Month Rap Content

Flocabulary, the leading video and student creativity platform that uses educational hip-hop to engage students and increase achievement, today names the winners of its second Black History Month Rap Contest, Halima Suleiman and Bilal Fatouh. 

The Black History Month Rap Contest serves to lift underrepresented stories and voices in Black American History. Over the course of Black History Month, nearly 650 students from across the country researched historical figures and wrote lyrics to celebrate and honor their lives. After reviewing initial lyric submissions, 20 elementary and secondary student finalists were chosen to record themselves rapping their original composition to decide the winners. 

Halima Suleiman, a 5th-grader at Olentangy Local Schools in Ohio, celebrates Fannie Lou Hamer in her rap. Fannie Lou Hamer was a trailblazing American voting and women’s rights activist and a leader in the civil rights movement. Bilal Fatouh, an 8th-grader at Monroe Woodbury in New York, pays reverence to the story of Emmett Till with his lyrics. Emmett Till was a 14-year-old African American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman in her family’s grocery store. 

“Culturally relevant teaching is imperative and we’re proud to empower educators with resources that elevate student voice and bring to the classroom the critical contributions of Black figures throughout US history,” shared Sara Romero-Heaps, Vice President of Product Strategy at Nearpod. “We remain committed to ensuring all students, especially Black students, see themselves reflected in their lessons and learning environments.” 

Both winners’ lyrics will inspire Flocabulary videos about their chosen historical figures. In 2019, the first Black History Month Rap Contest winner, Jaden Jackson, a then 9th-grader, had his original rap about U.S. Representative John Lewis turned into a lesson that’s been played nearly 64,000 times.

The Black History Month Rap Contest is a part of a developing series of contests meant to recognize underrepresented histories and uplift student voice. Nearpod and Flocabulary remain steadfast in their commitment to shine a light on the history of Black, Indigenous, and Asian Americans and providing standards-aligned content that makes it easy for educators to incorporate more diverse stories into their daily lessons. 

To learn more about the winners and finalists, click here, and to use Flocabulary - a Nearpod company - in your classroom be sure to visit: flocabulary.com. 

About Nearpod
Nearpod offers an interactive, instructional platform that merges formative assessment and dynamic media for live and self-paced learning experiences inside and outside of the classroom. Nearpod is a device-agnostic platform that engages students with activities such as VR Field Trips, PhET simulations and Desmos, and features more than 15,000 ready-to-run interactive lessons, videos and activities created in partnership with leading brands like Common Sense Education and Smithsonian. In 2019, Nearpod acquired Flocabulary, a learning platform that engages students in academically rigorous K-12 curriculum while promoting literacy through hip-hop videos. Together, Nearpod and Flocabulary reach educators in the 100 largest school districts in the US. In 2018, Nearpod was named EdTech Digest’s Company of the Year. In March 2021, Nearpod was acquired by Renaissance, a global leader in assessment, reading and math solutions for pre-K-12 schools and districts. To learn more about Nearpod, visit www.nearpod.com. For more information about Renaissance, visit www.renaissance.com. 
 

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Rachel Stoczko

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Nearpod

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