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.
The great vuvuzela war
South Africa is facing a number of pressing problems. The recession is biting deeper than expected – the expectation coming from a largely economic illiterate and denialist political leadership. The judiciary is under attack – from a governing party that can’t abide its will or – more usually – its lapses being examined by independent courts. Having destroyed the public health system, the government in fit of misplaced egalitarianism seeks to destroy the private health system as well. Not to forget that a recent study has found the 25% of South African males admit to rape.
But these aren’t the issues that get South Africans’ juices flowing. No, the country is experiencing a soccer frenzy at the moment with the local staging of the Confederations Cup competition as a dress rehearsal for next year’s World Cup. And the topic that is dominating the national conversation involves the various merits of the vuvuzela. Yes, that nasty bit of plastic so beloved by football fans. It is held to the lips and as lungfuls of toxic air is blasted through it, it emits a sound somewhere between a malfunctioning foghorn and a bellowing ox in its last throes of agony.
Foreign visitors, local supporters at their first footbal match and even some teams have complained about the fiendish racket. Local supporters are indignant saying it’s part of their culture and that if people don’t like it then they can just bugger off. Which, I might opine, they will.
If you’ve caught any of the games on TV, you would have heard a continuous droning sound, like a perpetually embittered swarm of hornets. But you really have to be there to appreciate the full horror of the cacophony. I took my son to a game a few nights ago and have been suffering from headaches ever since, and am sleeping fitfully.
Wesley, vuvuzela aficionado
An Australian I met at the game was simply incredulous: “Why don’t they just ban the bloody thing?” he whined. A typical Australian reaction to anything that might vaguely cause offence. No, I’m not for banning anything. Like anything I find offensive, I’ll simply remove myself and not attend occasions graced by the blaring of these instruments from hell. I’d rather attend a jack-hammer expo.
But there was a glimmer of relief. When my tortured ears heard a series of sweet, modulated sounds behind me, a whipped around to see a middle-aged man coaxing these notes from satan’s trumpet. I had seen him before, looking slightly uncomfortable with his four strapping lads all blaring out their hate. Now he had commandeered one of their horns and was producing these notes from heaven. (Okay – that’s a bit of a stretch, but anything was better than what had been assailing my brain up till then.)
I was immensely impressed with this employment of his embouchure to produce such notes. “I guess you must me a bugler”, I asked hopefully. “No, I play the French horn – I can make music out of anything”, he said apologetically.
I then got to thinking that if these heathen brutes could be introduced to the joys of producing actual musical notes from their hellish plastic pipes there might just be a shift in Zeitgeist amongst them and they might seek to actually make music. Luckily, it appears that one Pedro Espi-Sanchis has had the same idea, albeit without the requiring the sort of skill demonstrated by our French hornist.
Along with a Bafana Bafana surprise win, “Pedro the Music Man” wants to hear soccer fans blow their vuvuzelas in unison at stadiums across the country. Espi-Sanchis, famed for his appearances on children’s television shows, has developed three vuvuzela orchestras around the country, and plans to expand for 2010.
Well, all strength to his horn, as it were. You can listen to an interview with him and to his orchestra here:
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