Perhaps you've wished, while paging through a heavy textbook on evolutionary biology, that learning the subject could be a little more like an Eminem concert? If so, rush over to a New York theater where the rapper Baba Brinkman is ready to fill your brain with his one-man show, "The Rap Guide to Evolution."
The project began when Brinkman got a call from evolutionary biologist Mark Pallen, who asked him to compose a rap in honor of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. Says Brinkman: "All winter I sent him copies of my rap lyrics, and he came back with corrections, which means my hip-hop show is peer reviewed." Here's a segment of his show: Olivia Judson, who praised the show in The New York Times, says she suspects this is "the only hip-hop show to talk of mitochondria, genetic drift, sexual selection or memes." She continues:
[Brinkman] is a man on a mission to spread the word about evolution — how it works, what it means for our view of the world, and why it is something to be celebrated rather than feared. Brinkman is performing his show through Saturday, May 8th at the Bleeker Street Theatre in New York City. If you can't make it ...