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Canadian actor and rap artist Baba Brinkman will perform his one-man show The Rap Guide to Evolution 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 9 and 10, in Oechsle Hall room 224.
The performances are part of Lafayette’s celebration marking the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his magnum opus, On the Origin of Species.
Throughout his two days on campus, Brinkman will meet with students in art, English, music, and theater classes. He also will hold a session with local high school students 2:30 p.m. Nov. 9 in the Williams Visual Arts Building and a rap workshop with members of Writing Organization Reaching Dynamic Students 4 p.m. Nov. 10 in the Marlo Room of Farinon College Center. All of Brinkman’s events are free and open to the public.
Brinkman is best known for his award-winning, one-man show The Rap Canterbury Tales, which has delighted audiences around the world since 2004, sparking renewed interest in the work of Geoffrey Chaucer. In 2008, Mark Pallen, author of The Rough Guide to Evolution, asked Brinkman if he would “do for Darwin what he had done for Chaucer.”
The Rap Guide to Evolution explores the history and current understanding of Darwin’s theory, combining hilarious remixes of popular rap songs with clever lyrical storytelling that covers natural selection, sexual selection, evolutionary psychology, and much more. Pallen has vetted the entire script for scientific and historical accuracy, making the show a powerful teaching tool as well as a laugh-out-loud comedy experience. The show also engages directly with challenging questions about cultural evolution, asking the audience members to imagine themselves as the environment and the performer as an organism undergoing a form of live adaptation.
The show was developed with the support of the British Council and was featured this summer at both the Cambridge Darwin Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe, where it won the prestigious Scotsman Fringe First Award for Best New Theatre Writing.