Performance, Feedback, Revision - Baba Brinkman

So, when I first start writing these evolution raps, about six months ago,

Some of the early drafts, they sounded kinda like this:

«Yo, yo, the Origin of Species

Ain’t no feces, dawg, believe me…»

And that’s all I could think of

So then I thought, this needs to be re-written

And sometimes people ask: «How does your show get written?»

Like this: performance, feedback, revision

And how do I generally develop my lyricism?

Like this: performance, feedback, revision

And how do human beings ever learn to do anything?

Like this: performance, feedback, revision

And evolution is really an algorithm that goes

Like this: performance, feedback, revision

So the genetic code of every living thing was written.

Like this: performance, feedback, revision

See, the genes are like a text with a thousand pages.

And revision occurs in the random changes

That come from mutations, and when they see the light

That’s the performance, that’s the phenotype

And natural selection is the feedback side

That’s about who survives and whose genes catch rides

In the next generation, yes, what I’m saying

Is that a rap performance like this is the best illustration

Of the way descent with modification works

'Cause the performance is necessary to change the words

A reconstruction of ambulocetus the 'walking whale'.

To decide which have an impact and which to send back

To the drawing board, in fact I just did that

When you failed to react, 'cause any line can change

And mutations occur when I improvise on stage

'Cause up until this moment, everything I said was off the page.

But now it’s time for me to switch to freestyle, yeah, random speeches

Charles Darwin was right, you could examine his thesis

Even though creationists are always trying to smash it to pieces

Evo devo people found for it up in an animal’s fetus.

And archaeologists found evidence for it up in ambulocetus

Yeah, that’s the bones they found of a walking whale.

I’m kinda cocky with my tales, plus I see evidence for evolution

Everytime I talk to females;

You can see it in their eyes

The way they sparkle, with my vocabulary

Plus they’re kind of impressed that I rap on the Tales of Canterbury

So when I talk to my ancestors in my sleep, I’m like «Thank you very

Much!»

'Cause you gave me the skills to leave mad descendants

Yes, creationists are mad pretentious;

I’m just tryin' to smash these sentences

I’m tryin' to dispel all creationist myths like I was Daniel Dennett

Because I think religion is pretty much just an anaesthetic

But I’m gonna have to take it to that place, and rap frickin' awesome

Yes, you know I’m tryin' to be the Hip-hop version of Richard Dawkins

Even though his attitude can sometimes be a little pompous

I think his powers of logic are frickin' awesome

Plus he’s dealin' with the central problem of modern life

It’s belief in reason versus passive belief in an afterlife

Which leads to things like animal and human sacrifice

Yeah, I’m tryin to come through kinda shifty

Like I was a purse-snatcher;

you can call me the word-master

Most rappers next to me kinda look like Homo ergaster

Or Homo erectus I’m just tryin' to use Darwin

To get a total perspective that’s right, that’s how I rip it up

Creationists are trippin' up;

yes, I’m tryin' to take it back

To the days of Australopithecus, you could try to follow me

But first you’d better study human nature and base it

On primatology;

otherwise it won’t be very worthy

Just ask Ms Sarah Hrdy;

yes, she had some theories

That she tried to give to all of us, yes, I’m tryin' to abolish

All the creationist non-knowledge, and show them evidence

Like the bones of Tiktaalik;

yes, this is how I’m just

Tryin' to represent it for my fam;

I learned about my origins

Up in the Descent of Man

And that’s how my show gets written and re-written

Like this: performance, feedback, revision

And anyone can use this algorithm to learn anything

Like this: performance, feedback, revision

But remember, you get the feedback, and you make the decision

Like this: performance, feedback, revision

You wanna know about evolution?

This is the definition

Like this: performance, feedback, revision