I’m a big fan of Brinkman, but don’t take it just from me. His Rap Guide to Evolution is noteworthy enough to even get a write up in the New Yorker:
THE RAP GUIDE TO EVOLUTION: Hip-hop and the biological sciences have more in common than one might think—sexual selection features prominently in both. The Canadian rapper and scholar Dirk (Baba) Brinkman’s one-man show “The Rap Guide to Evolution” features remixes of popular raps and original compositions that have been fact-checked by Mark Pallen (the author of “The Rough Guide to Evolution”) for scientific and historical accuracy. Brinkman’s latest is a follow-up to his 2004 performance, “The Rap Canterbury Tales” (talk about olde school). (Bleecker Street Theatre, 45 Bleecker St. 212-239-6200. May 6-8.
Seriously, anyone in the New York area should really make an effort to catch this performance. If I didn’t already have a commitment, I’d be making the four-hour road trip, even though I’ve seen him perform something like 10 times. In that way, I guess he’s kind of the Wide Spread Panic for Darwin geeks. To get a sense of his ability to elucidate concepts of evolution with hip hop, here is his performance of Performance, Feedback, Revision at the Hammersmith Apollo in London:
