We have the immense pleasure of interviewing Baba Brinkman, a Canadian rap artist & award-winning playwright best known for his “Rap Guide” series of plays and albums, with which he has toured the world; these cover topics like evolution, religion, medicine, and most recently climate change. He’s also pioneered the genre of ‘lit-hop’ with his adaptations of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Gilgamesh, Beowulf & more. Our conversation ranges through tree-planting; the connections between Homer, Chaucer, & rap; Horace, Lucretius, & Erasmus Darwin as science communicators; the comedy of neuroscience; Trump; language & dictionaries; and more.
At the end of the interview we play a couple of tracks by Baba: his newest single "Erosion", and the first two tracks from his Rap Canterbury Tales album, "General Prologue" & "The Knight's Tale (scene 1)".
Show Notes
A brief history of rhyme | Baba Brinkman | TEDxNavesink
Baba Brinkman & Professor Elemental - What's Your English?