Baba Brinkman - Performance, Feedback, Revision lyrics

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