One of the better shows I saw up in Edinburgh the other weekend was The Rap Guide To Evolution by a guy called Baba Brinkman. I’d seen one of his shows last year, The Rebel Cell, which was a play entirely in rap form about various forms of civil disobedience and the surveillance culture. Better than it sounds, honest.
I’ve been on and off his website all year, and was delighted to see that he had a new show for this year’s Fringe, as well as doing The Rebel Cell again. The new show was a solo effort, mainly talking about evolutionary theories but also tying it into rap subculture.
Each “chapter” of the show was on a slightly different theme, and ended with a reworking of a rap song with lyrics about evolution and society. It took me until the second or third chapter to realise that the main parts of each chapter were also being rhymed, although it was more free-flow poetry than outright rap.
Brinkman said that he had consulted with an evolutionary scientist constantly throughout his preparation for this performance, and it showed in the way he was able to deal methodically with the material, moving seamlessly from one theory to the next, and introducing some relatively high-level biological and sociological ideas.
It’s still a little odd to see a Canadian white-boy rhyme so well, especially when covering some of the more hardcore gangster rap, but Brinkman carries it off. He’s got a great command of language, and his freestyle section in particular was really excellent.
Yes, it’s a slightly odd concept for a show, but it’s definitely worth seeing if you can. And if you can’t, Brinkman has posted recordings of his tracks online.
