A new children's series of animated, musical shorts has some heavyweights behind it: Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson and Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter of the Grammy-winning musical group The Roots.

The two musicians produced music for Rise Up, Sing Out which begins airing Wednesday on Disney+. They also serve as executive producers and they're depicted as animated characters in the series.

According to Disney, the goal of Rise Up, Sing Out is to "showcase an inspiring, empowering and optimistic message about race, culture, community and celebrating differences."

"The Rise Up, Sing Out shorts touch on a lot of real-world issues," says Questlove in a statement, "especially for young Black kids, that just weren't talked about when we were growing up." The creative team hopes parents will watch the series with their children. "The beautiful thing about these shorts is that not only are they going to provide young kids the proper language to talk to their friends and family about some of the things that might be bothering them, but it's also going to give parents the tools on how to respond," Questlove adds.