By Carlie Provident

“It feels as though someone is looking out from behind your eyes,” Baba Brinkman said on Monday March 19, at Thiel College during his performance of informative rap songs dealing with human consciousness and climate chaos.

Two sessions were held which students were invited to. At two in the afternoon there was a discussion on consciousness. Then at seven in the evening the “rap guide to climate chaos” was presented.

Baba Brinkman is a Canadian rapper, a science communicator, and an award-winning literary hip-hip artist. He creates his own raps, sometimes freestyling while pairing certain categories that are important at the time of his show. This combination of rap and science that was being presented to students is rather new compared to how most individuals learn about such topics.

Brinkman began his scientific rap show by being commissioned to create such. Later following his show on evolution, he composed an album series of rap guides covering many subjects including human nature, business, wilderness, religion, medicine, climate change, and consciousness. The last two which he presented to Thiel College on Monday.

In Brinkman’s presentation on consciousness, he stated “we can’t understand the brain and the limits it can reach being that we are the ones examining the brain.” Which he further explained to mean that since we only know so much about a particular thing, how can we know more being that we humans are the ones searching? According to Brinkman the brain is an important factor to living.

Brinkman spoke of how if the human brain and how both sides are able to work together, and an image is shown either of a face or of a house, it takes the brain 200 milliseconds to interlink the two parts to think as one. Another fact shared with the audience was that certain images can go and trigger a single neuron. This means that a person’s face can trigger one of anyone’s neurons.

With the 7pm showing, climate control was the main factor. Each topic was about some way how humans contributed to what is happening to the earth and how we can take control of the damage we have done if we all work together, and start changing our ways.

“If energy consumption is a sin, then I’m a sinner,” are lyrics from one of many of Brinkman’s songs.  His one song, “#laudatiSi”, was focused on selfish countries asking for more economic development.  He positioned as the pope and the tweets which the pope had made. “Point to the sky, point to the ground, point to the left, point to the right, now you are all converted ladies and gentlemen.”

This was a creative and interactive way to get the audience involved according to one audience member. Brinkman was able to bring a creative strategy into how rap can be interconnected with education. The audience interacted with Brinkman and the activities throughout the day. At the end of his show, he had CD’s which he had given to those who had asked, and he even signed them and posed for photos.