Performance, Feedback, Revision
Vancouver-based rap artist Baba Brinkman is adding a new twist to a genre usually characterized by gangsters, sex, and money. A former tree-planter with a Masters degree in Medieval Literature, Brinkman’s favorite subject to rhyme about isn’t drive-by’s, drug deals, or his girlfriend’s physique. It’s the dynamic process of evolution. In fact, in 2009, to honor the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, he created an entire show to spread the word about evolution and how it changes the way we see the world. The award-winning Rap Guide to Evolution is as Brinkman says, “the only hip-hop show to have been peer-reviewed.” (He developed it in collaboration with Mark Pallen, a professor of evolutionary biology–and a rap connoisseur–at Britain’s University of Birmingham.) And as you’ll see in the following video, a live performance at London’s Hammersmith Apollo, he practices what he preaches. Wearing an Obama-style T-shirt of Charles Darwin, he riffs on the evolutionary algorithm of performance, feedback, and revision that drives the creative process, including his song, which he evolves in real time on the stage.
Click here to visit Baba Brinkman’s website.
Filed Under: Culture • EnlightenNext Editors’ Blog • Evolutionary Biology • Pop Culture • Science
The man’s got an awesome flow… and the simplicity of performance, feedback, revision was so cool to see in action up on the stage!