Baba Brinkman: The Rap Guide to Evolution

Cana­di­an “geek rap­per” Baba Brinkman first gar­nered pop­u­lar atten­tion with a well-received, well-reviewed rap adap­ta­tion of Chaucer’s Can­ter­bury Tales at the Edin­burgh Fringe Fes­ti­val. (To get a sense of the project, check out this brief scene from “The Par­don­er’s Tale.”) And we also pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured his bril­liant work on Macmil­lan’s What’s Your Eng­lish? cam­paign.

Brinkman has brought his fol­low-up show, a fas­ci­nat­ing homage to Charles Dar­win called “The Rap Guide to Evo­lu­tion,” to New York City, where it’s get­ting rave reviews. In the video above, he explains how he went about putting the project togeth­er, and how evo­lu­tion­ary sci­ence enriched his under­stand­ing of the vio­lence and anger so preva­lent in the music he loves. The whole talk is great, but if you want to start off with a taste of the rap itself, skip for­ward to minute 9:03.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hayak vs. Keynes Rap

The Cli­mate Sci­en­tist Rap (Warn­ing: Offen­sive Lan­guage)

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.