Rapping for Darwin
This is Darwin’s year and exhibitions, books, television series and plays have been launched to celebrate it. Now Canadian hip hop artist Baba Brinkman has brought his art to the party, in the form of “The Rap Guide to Evolution”, which…
…uses remixed beats, comedic storytelling, and rap poetry to make the science behind evolution accessible and interesting to a wide audience.“The Rap Guide to Evolution” was commissioned by British microbiologist Mark Pallen, who checked all the rhymes for scientific accuracy, prompting Brinkman to remark his may be the first ever “peer-reviewed hip hop show.”
Here are some of the lyrics (is that what they’re called?) from I am an African:
No I wasn’t born in Ghana but Africa is my mama
‘Cause that’s where my mama got her mitochondria
You can try to fight if you wanna, but it’s not gonna change me
‘Cause it’s plain to see, Africans are my people
And if it’s not plain to see then your eyes deceive you
I’m talkin’ primeval; the DNA in my veins
Tells a story that reasonable people find believable
But it might blow your transistors; Africa
Is the home of our most recent common ancestors
Which means human beings are all brothers and sisters.
Yeah. This is good – the more audiences reached to promote science, the better.



