JAYFORCE

Not sure if you know like I know, but there are folks in Hip-Hop whose works I admire yet will probably never totally ‘get.’ Like, I know Raekwon is dope, but sometimes he goes into some bushes I have never seen before… and I can’t follow what he’s doing. I just chalk it up to him doing him doing Hip-Hop… and I stay on a Hip-Hop path because I know he will come back and stomp down a familiar path (or at least one I can follow) and we’re good. That kind of thinking is not just for Hip-Hop. I think about Neil deGrasse Tyson or Gary Vaynerchuk or some of the far-out science/tech articles I post here… not knowing all of what is going on, but knowing there is something there; that this is something I should be following.

This cat, Baba Brinkman. He’s like that; with his lyrical presentations about consciousness and such. I just dug some write-ups about him out of the inbox and peeped this trailer that came with them… I’m seeing critical acclaim, some building buzz, association with work I often follow into some of those aforementioned bushes (see Mega Ran – who I ran across while staying up on the moves of the homie SkyBlew). Yeah. So I subscribed. I get a good amount of what he is spitting about (yeah, like rapping about) in his rhymes that engage and explore the mind. And while I am sure Baba will head off into some bushes I’m not eff’n with from time-to-time, I get the feeling that he will brink it back (come, rewind). Like Chef Raekwon and Dr. Tyson do for me.

Check dude’s trailer out and see if you can keep up with what he’s putting down. One time for your mind!

– @ojones1

Baba Brinkman is a Canadian rap artist and award-winning playwright. To date, Brinkman has written seven Hip-Hop plays and released more than a dozen rap albums, toured the world, and enjoyed successful runs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and off-Broadway in New York. Brinkman is a pioneer in both science-based rap and also “lit- hop” or literary Hip-Hop, and he’s known for his adaptations of The Canterbury Tales, Beowulf, and Gilgamesh. However, he is best known for his “Rap Guide” series. The first of those, The Rap Guide to Evolution (“Astonishing and brilliant” – NY Times), won a Scotsman Fringe First Award and a Drama Desk Award nomination and was featured on US national TV on The Rachel Maddow Show and at the Seattle Science Festival opening for Stephen Hawking. Baba is a recent recipient of the National Center for Science Education’s “Friend of Darwin Award” for his efforts to improve the public understanding of evolutionary biology. His play, Rap Guide to Consciousness, was a hit at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe exploring the material basis of brain science in Hip-Hop form. His clever and distinctive style has earned him the attention of the New York Times, Time Out New York, The Village Voice, NPR, Macleans, CBC, and the BBC. When he is not on tour, Baba Brinkman resides in New York with his wife, neuroscientist and Discovery TV host Dr. Heather Berlin, their daughter Hannah and son Dylan.