Thirteen children, including several adopted kids from Durham families, are part of a new rap song called Home that debuted at the Durham Children’s Aid Society in Oshawa, Ont., Tuesday night in celebration of Adoption Awareness Month.
“You accept all my baggage — I don’t mean suitcases. I can be myself and not fake it,” the children sing on the track.
Chris Innamorati, a rapper who goes by the name Crisis, wrote the song based on his experience as a child and youth worker and taught the children to sing it this summer at his week-long rap camp.
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“I looked at a lot of literature of interviews from children who have been adopted to get my ideas and get my lyrics,” said Innamorati. “It’s the words of the children coming out in the song.”
“I used to know what home is by definition,” sing the children in the song. “Now, I know what home is by recognition.”
Talib Hirleheoi, one of the children who raps and sings in the song, was adopted from foster care when he was five years old.
“I didn’t get to have the childhood… the experience that other kids get to have when they were first born,” said 10-year-old Hirleheoi, who lives in Bowmanville, Ont. “Now, I do because I was adopted.”
The Durham Children’s Aid Society, along with its counterparts in Kawartha-Haliburton as well as Hastings, Northumberland and Prince Edward counties, helped fund the project.