Amazing! Before Derek was a professional speaker delivering motivation and inspiration, he was an abused and neglected child who was abandoned into the foster care system.
Derek Clark loves to spread inspirational messages to his kids in creative ways. He has become an internet sensation due to his viral videos called Rapping Dad. Derek has a dark past; he was abandoned at age five and spent the remaining years of his childhood in foster care.
“I got abandoned at age five at a psychiatric facility,” Clark said. “My dad was in prison for the criminally insane at Folsom State Prison; my mother and step-father felt the need to get rid of me, so they abandoned me. The sad truth was that my mom and stepdad rejected me but kept my brother and sister.”
And just like his atypical childhood, Derek has an out-of-the-ordinary lyrical talent. It’s something he taught himself during the dark times, to bring some light into his life.
“It allowed me to get the inner-me, out,” Clark said.
His talent: rapping – poetry in motion.
He is known as the ‘rapping dad.’
The car is now a place for Derek to create memories and have car talk time with his four kids: Ozzy, Trayce, Monte, and Remi. They create fun and positive videos; a few of them have more than one million views on Facebook as well as YouTube. He’s now able to create fun memories with his kids that he didn’t get with his own father.
“If I can create something fun and positive in that moment, then I planted a seed,” Clark said. “It’s all about planting a positive seed in your kids’ minds and helping it to grow”
Derek loves to instill in his kids messages of inspiration. The lyrics in his raps tell his kids in a hip way, they can do and be anything they want when they get older.
Derek is an inspirational speaker and author of seven books.
