Baba Brinkman: The Rap Guide To Evolution

A novel species of theatre combining the wit, poetry, and charisma of a great rapper with the accuracy and rigor of a scientific expert, Baba Brinkman’s The Rap Guide to Evolution uses hip-hop as a vehicle to communicate the facts of evolution while illuminating the origins and complexities of hip-hop culture with Darwin as the inspiration.

A smash hit at the Edinburgh Fringe and around the world, The Rap Guide is at once provocative, hilarious, intelligent, and scientifically accurate. Brinkman performs his clever reworkings of popular rap singles as well as his own originals to illustrate Natural Selection, Sexual Selection, Evolutionary Psychology, and much more.
Brinkman undertook the project at the suggestion of Dr. Mark Pallen, author of The Rough Guide to Evolution. After seeing Brinkman’s internationally acclaimed Rap Canterbury Tales, Dr. Pallen challenged the polymath rapper to “do for Darwin what he had done for Chaucer.” In order to ensure scientific and historical accuracy, Brinkman consulted Pallen throughout the creative process, making The Rap Guide to Evolution the first peer-reviewed hip-hop show. Pallen has described Brinkman as having “swallowed the idea and turned it into a work of genius.”