The Rap Guide to Evolution
6:00 PM, Fri., 2/27
4:45 PM, Sat., 2/28
2:45 PM, Sun., 3/1
9:30 PM, Sun., 3/1
****ADDED SHOW!!**** 4:00 PM, Sat., 3/7 Dianna’s South
Severance Art Studio (1401 N. Wishon Ave.)
$10
Canadian rap artist, performance poet, and actor Baba Brinkman follows up his hilarious award-winning one-man show “The Rap Canterbury Tales” with a journey to the center of history’s greatest controversy: the Origin of Species. Brinkman’s powerful storytelling has been hailed the world over as an ingenious hybrid of rap and theatre. Fresh from a tour celebrating the 2009 Darwin Bicentennial in England, this will be the North American premier of “The Rap Guide to Evolution”.
Babasword Productions
http://www.babasword.com
Vancouver, British Columbia
Genre:Spoken Word/Storytelling
Rating: PG-13 50 minutes
Warnings/Disclaimers: Sexual references and mature subject matter (but no swearing)
Latecomers admitted
Filed under: 2/27 Friday, 2/28 Saturday, 3/1 Sunday, 3/7 Saturday, Dianna's South, Main Stage, Severance, updates
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10 Responses to “The Rap Guide to Evolution”
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* The Rogue celebrates the freedom of expression and we encourage you to review as many shows as you can catch at Rogue 2009. However, "flaming" (i.e. personal insults, name calling, etc) are not reviews and any such comments will be deleted.
February 19th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Baba is phenomenally gifted. His take on “The Canterbury Tales” was witty and insightful, and I’m sure his take on Darwin and evolution will be as well. This is not a show to be missed!
February 28th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
A must see! Amazing in three respects: research, writing and performance. I’ve enjoyed several Rogue acts over the last couple of years but I was a little suspicious on this one. That’s because when people (other than rap stars) use rap they usually take it as a guise to be funny. They come off cheesy because they have a rudimentary understanding of rap as making a ryhme and grabbing their crotch. So I was pleasantly surprised - taken aback really - by how Baba Brinkman blended serious MC skilz with evolutionary thought. My wife and I both loved it. Funny but thought provoking.
March 1st, 2009 at 11:24 am
This is “a work in evolution”, so this production is not as polished nor as satisfying as Canterbury Tales. A lower ticket price would be appropriate.
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:23 am
there was good and bad to this performance.
the bad:
-the sound was lacking. this isn’t the performer’s fault. the tracks he used need to be a lot louder, and the eq’ing on his mic was bad. it made his voice sound very thin.
-he’s cramming a lot and i mean a lot into a little time - raps that are a few minutes long. it feels a bit rushed and glossed over. then again, it’s not a lecture, so this isn’t really that bad.
-the show felt a bit rushed. maybe it’s due to the amount of info (see above) or maybe because it’s still in progress or maybe it’s just the way he flows. i don’t know. i’d like him to slow it down a beat and really let me enjoy the rhyme, as well as digest the info.
the good:
-wow. this dude just hit me with a firehose of information.
-he has a very nice flow. not my personal fav style for hip hop, but still good. it’s not just some white dude from the ‘berbs “doing” hip hop. it really feels like it’s coming from his personna.
-very witty.
-baba takes on a grandiose task and pulls it off fairly well. it’s not perfect…it’s evolving.
March 2nd, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Perhaps I should dismiss my dismay at this show as a “to each their own” kinda thing. But I was a bit disgusted. The show starts by proclaiming that 99% of scientists agree that Darwinism is correct. That’s not what I had a problem with - the problem I (and several others who saw the show with me) saw was that the show did not stick to Darwinism. It slipped into Social Darwinism, which is not agreed on by scientists (Darwin didn’t even suggest using his theory in this way). I think the show thus comes off as rather racist, sexist, and offensive, if you’re paying attention. The performer’s suggestion that minority teenagers get pregnant as a biological defense because they probably won’t live very long in their harsh environment was one of many instances that made me sick to my stomach.
Even artistically speaking, this show wasn’t nearly as strong or polished as last year’s performances of Rap Canterbury Tales, which I really enjoyed. I enjoyed the first ten minutes of Rap Guide to Evolution, and I was impressed with the attempt to bridge two such opposing worlds (science of rap). Perhaps I could dismiss the last fifty minutes of the show if it wasn’t branded as a proclamation of what 99% of scientists really think.
March 7th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Baba Brinkman’s “Rap Guide to Evolution” is brilliant. A must see. He has melded art and science into an entertaining, educational and engaging show that makes evolutionary biology accessible, entertaining and relevant. The show received a standing ovation so I doubt the disgust expressed by Jessi (above) was common, and I doubt the rest of us were all racist and sexist. Baba’s performance is not advocating social Dawinism (a repugnant application of evolutionary theory denounced by Darwin himself) as suggested in Jessi’s review. Baba’s “Rap Guide to Evolution” has been vetted by evolutionary biologists for adherence to current understanding of evolutionary biology- it is “correct” even if not “politically correct”. Baba is simply projecting Darwinian evolution to human biology- - humans are not removed from natural selection, even though some of the social sciences would suggest we are. Many of the sexually selected traits that humans possess evolved long before the complex social systems and cultures we have today- yet those ancestrally derived features are still with us and affecting many of our cultural, social and sexual interactions. Natural selection affects the life history traits of organisms- it is not such a stretch to suggest that it might similarly affect human life histories. Baba could have stuck with just talking about lions and tigers and slime molds and avoided the evolutionary aspects of human behavior, and the potential for offending someone, but it would not have been as engaging or relevant.
Go see Baba’s show for yourself- a new show has been added at Dianna’s South, 3/7 at 4pm.
March 7th, 2009 at 11:23 am
If you only catch one show at the Rogue on this final day, make it “The Rap Guide to Evolution” at 4:00 at Dianna’s South. What Baba did for Chaucer with “The Rap Canterbury Tales,” he now does for Darwin. The show is not only immensely entertaining, it is intellectually stimulating and thought-provoking, Baba does it again!
March 7th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Good job with a great topic. Cross over between music, biology, socio biology and comedy. This needs to be done and the Rogue is perfect for it. Thank you for your research, talent and courageous innovation. And yes it includes a favorite phrase never said enough “Charles Darwin was right”. Please come back next year, many of us look forward to your performances.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Terrific! Rick has it dead right. The entire performance was firmly grounded in evolutionary theory and facts. As Charles said and Baba affirmed - “there is grandeur in this view of life”.
March 9th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
I loved this show. I saw his encore performance in Dianna’s on Saturday, and by then his voice was hoarse. He didn’t let it affect the energy of his performance, however, and he made some good jokes about it being “the Tom Waits version.” The subject probably didn’t lend itself to comedy as well as the Canterbury Tales did, but I came to it with quite a bit of geeky enthusiasm and excitement that someone was going to rap about science, so it was very satisfying for me.
Jessi’s comment that it had some underlying racism/sexism, I think, misunderstands what he was trying to say when he was extending group survival principles to urban areas. He was trying to use evolution as an example of why risk-taking behavior is more profitable and escalated in certain environments, but in the show he definitely argues against a “Social Darwinist” stance that whatever means helps one survive is ok. His analysis takes social dynamics into account to explain them, but that does not equate with actual Social Darwinist philosophy, which is a sort of moralizing about who “deserves” to survive. In fact, towards the end, he clearly argues against such judgments when he discusses the development of morality in cultural evolution, and how we should realize that we are all “brothers and sisters” descended from the same origins. Trying to explain behavior of people in certain environments does not equal racism.