The Rebel Cell in the Middle East (Part 1)

Salaam/Shalom,

Two weeks ago I touched down in the UK after twelve days in the Middle East, including Rebel Cell performances in Egypt and Palestine, and a visit to Tel Aviv, and my impressions of the trip have been percolating constantly ever since, trying to find a smooth exit, but it's mostly been gridlock. However, the further I get from the experience the less of it I am likely to capture with any lucidity, so I'm going to try to piece it together.

The trip was originally initiated by a grant from the UK Economic and Social Research Council, which has a fund for promoting cultural exchanges with Egypt, especially ones with a political or democratic slant, and the play Dizraeli and I co-wrote in 2008 apparently qualifies. The play is about the politics of resistance and progressive change, set in a totalitarian future dystopia, and it takes the form of a Socratic dialogue between two ideological adversaries. Dizraeli’s character argues for the collectivist anarchist model of direct action and my character argues for participatory democracy and the social contract. At the root of this debate is the question of whether “the system” (ie capitalism and liberal democracy) is inherently exploitive and requires an overhaul (or overthrow), or whether it provides collective net benefits and only needs to be regulated and fine-tuned to correct specific abuses and injustices. This question is largely academic in England and Canada, since there are very few people here who would endorse an armed revolution (hence the dystopian future setting), but in Egypt and Palestine, where the right to vote, freely travel, peaceably assemble, and speak your mind are routinely suppressed with state violence, the question of “revolution vs reform” weighs much more heavily.

We were booked to perform the Rebel Cell at the El Sawy Culturewheel in Cairo on March 27th and had our travel and fees covered from the UK and back by the ESRC, just for a single performance, so naturally we decided to cast our net a bit wider. We reached out to contacts in both Israel and Palestine, hoping we could arrange performances of the Rebel Cell on “both sides of the fence”. Our rationale was that the subject matter of the play is highly relevant to both Palestinians under occupation and conscientious Israelis who oppose the occupation, and it would foster dialogue and possibly provide a small means to “reach across the divide”, etc, since that is essentially what the play is about: the importance of respectful debate and of friendships that cross ideological boundaries. If our motives sound naïve, I should add that Dizraeli and I are not particularly well versed in the politics of the region, nor did we really do our homework before embarking on this trip. My only excuse is that I’ve been too busy over the past few months, but busy is always relative. In retrospect I feel a bit like a kid who has been skipping through a field, oblivious to the sign nearby that says “Danger! Landmines!” Why does the child miss the sign, because he is merely engrossed in his thoughts, or because he has a psychological incentive to overlook it? And why do I suspect there is something quintessentially Canadian about this feeling? In the case of this trip, the sign said: “Danger! Cultural Boycott!”

Our first clear glimpse of the danger sign came when we were planning the dates of our trip: should we try to go to Israel/Palestine before Egypt or after? When we floated this idea to Dr. Caroline Rooney, the Zimbabwean professor of post-colonial studies who secured the funds and coordinated everything for us, she said it wouldn’t be possible to get us flights to Israel because of the cultural and academic boycott (ie: as an academic she would play no part in arranging this or funding it). So we had to get our flights in and out of Cairo and travel to Israel in between. Actually at this point I should mention that when I say “our flights into and out of Cairo” I am only referring to myself and the Rebel Cell DJ, but not Dizraeli. This is because Dizraeli undertook his journey to the Middle East entirely overland with a documentary filmmaker in tow, taking trains and buses from England through Europe, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and finally to Egypt, ten days in each direction, as a form of climate change activism. The concordance between our travel decisions and the arguments of our characters in the play is uncanny and could inspire an entire doctoral thesis, but for now I will treat this as a tangent, since the bottom line is that we had to arrange to be in the same place at the same time, one way or another, in order to do the play. If you want to learn more about Dizraeli’s overland adventure and its purported political significance, check out UnPlaned.com.

So what to do about this boycott question? When we heard the news from Dr. Rooney about our travel funding restrictions Dizraeli and I had a conversation: should we perform in Israel? What if we get offered gigs in Israel but not Palestine? What if we get offered gigs in both, by a peace-building NGO, but the funding all comes from Israel? What if the Palestinian venues won’t host us after playing in Israel? The two closest friends I have who are knowledgeable about the area are Daniel, a British MC living in Israel, who is also one-half of a Jewish/Muslim hip-hop group (the Jewish half), and Noa, an Israeli living in England, and both of them advised us to play both sides, essentially to ignore the boycott for the reasons cited above, ie to “keep artistic dialogue open despite possible disagreements”. Let's call this the "Leonard Cohen approach", since he recently played a concert near Tel Aviv, and answered the boycott call by attempting to set up a gig in Ramallah to "balance" the Israeli one (sound familiar?), which fell through in the face of strong opposition from the boycott campaign. He then offered the proceeds from his Israel concert to support peace-building efforts through a fund that was to be administered by Amnesty International, but Amnesty also divested in the face of boycott pressure, so the funds instead went to a charity called Parents Circle. However, Daniel was at the concert and he tells me Leonard Cohen made repeated calls for peace from the stage, calls for both Palestinians and Israelis to respect the suffering and humanity of the other side, and in his view this was a positive event that brought peace closer.

Noa and Daniel also both pointed out that when it comes to boycotting oppressive regimes, it would be pretty inconsistent to play Egypt (a politically-closed society with widespread censorship) but not Israel (a politically-open and self-critical society). So we decided to keep our options open and see whether any offers came through, but to use our discretion in terms of who was funding the gigs, venues, etc.

When the British film director Ken Loach (The Wind that Shakes the Barley) pulled his most recent film out of the Melbourne Film Festival because the festival was partially funded by the Israeli government, he and his co-producers defended their decision in the Guardian by saying “Israeli film-makers are not the target. State involvement is”. This was essentially our position as well: how could we reach out to individual Israeli citizens without providing support in any way for the state of Israel?

However, with our Cairo performance only ten days away we still hadn’t been offered any gigs in either Israel or Palestine, so the entire debate was beginning to look, once again, academic. Since we had already booked our trains and planes and committed to the dates it was starting to look like we would end up doing the tourist thing after all, visiting Israel and Palestine but not performing in either, and since you get to Palestine via Israel from Egypt anyway there seemed to be very little controversy. But then we got word from a contact of Dizraeli’s, Baha, that we would be performing the Rebel Cell at two different venues in the West Bank, in Beit Sahour (near Bethlehem) and Ramallah April 1st and 3rd.

I had read some arguments for and against the cultural boycott online in the run-up to our trip, but my instinct in such cases is to suspend judgment until I’ve seen for myself what is at stake. In the next installment, I’ll try to explain what I saw, and how it has affected my views on this quintessential question: what is the best way to promote justice?

To be continued...

20,000 Views!

Hey y'all - my new rationalist anthem "Off That" is a blatant rip-off of my favorite song on Jay-Z's latest album, but since I'm not selling it or profiting from it in any way, he can't touch me! The song is basically about moving on, out with the old and in with the new, only Hova's version is about fashions and mine is about ideas. Out with superstition, in with science, out with faith, in with reason, etc. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAYVY2eLMck

So the big news is that it just passed 20,000 views on Youtube after just 8 days online! There is also a very lively debate going on with over a hundred comments, most of them positive, but some pretty negative, so obviously something in the song has struck a chord. It's meant to be provocative so as far as I'm concerned mission accomplished, but that doesn't mean I don't stand behind the message of the song. I mean it 100%, but I don't always phrase my views as strongly. It's kind of refreshing.

If you don't have a strong opinion about it either way then I hope you enjoy the top-notch production and visuals, but if you do have a strong opinion, please leave a comment and join the debate!

All the best from Cairo,

Baba

Off That

Friends,

Two pieces of news, both exciting, but I'll start with the really incendiary one. A few months ago I was approached by a science-themed UK music festival called Geek Pop, who asked if I would create some original pro-science content, so I wrote a rap song, a kind of "rationalist anthem" putting the flames to pseudo-science in its more pernicious modern guises. Once the song was finished (produced by the mighty Mr. Simmonds), Geek Pop put me in touch with an amazingly talented video designer called Tommy Nagle, and he created original animations and graphics, resulting in a stunning music video. It went live just three days ago and already it has over 5,000 views on youtube, and some enthusiastic (and not-so-enthusiastic) comments. Part of this exposure is due to the fact that New Scientist Magazine hosted a link to the video on their home page. Here it is (breathe deep): Click here to watch.



I understand that many of you won't share my views on this subject, and probably some of you will absolutely loathe this video, especially if I've gone after any of your sacred cows, but if that is the case the least I can ask is that you follow up on the links provided in the end credits. Everything in the song is based on something I read and was persuaded by, and based on the principle that rational free inquiry is worth defending against those who would tear it down. This philosophy of science and its insights into the nature of the universe is shared by many who call themselves skeptics, atheists, rationalists, secular humanists, etc. In fact, New Humanist Magazine put the video in their blog with this review: "From now on when someone asks us what we stand for, we might just tell them to start by watching this." So it seems I have become a spokesman for my intellectual kin, and I'm okay with that. At the very least it has given me the chance to connect and work with some inspiring and creative people. If you want to see Tommy's animation in all of its high definition glory, try watching it on facebook.



So now for the less-incendiary bit of news: tomorrow I'm on my way to Egypt for a series of performances! The trip is part of a UK initiative to bring politically-engaged drama to Egypt, which means the hip-hop play I co-wrote with Dizraeli a few years ago, The Rebel Cell, is about to have its Middle Eastern and African debut. Tomorrow morning Mr Simmonds and I will fly to Cairo for our show there on Saturday, and the following week we'll be doing the tourist thing in Israel. If this is the first you've heard of the Rebel Cell then you must be new to my newsletters, since we performed it at the Edinburgh Fringe in both 2008 and 2009, won several awards, and this September we'll be launching an eight-week tour of UK theatres with the show. Here's some more info if you're curious: Click Here.

One of the most interesting twists in the ongoing saga of the Rebel Cell is not that we've got a gig coming up in Egypt, but that Dizraeli has undertaken to do the tour without flying as a form of climate change activism. We've had discussions in the past about performing in North America, Australia, etc, but his refusal to fly has so far restricted our performances to the UK and Ireland (to my occasional frustration, I admit). This time, however, he mapped out an overland course and recruited a documentary film-maker friend to join him, and they are making a film about the consequences of having an environmental conscience if you're a performing artist, taking trains and buses on a ten-day journey each way. Last I heard they were in Istanbul, so they must be nearing Syria by now.

And what about me? Don't I have an environmental conscience? Of course I do, but I choose to fly because I find it necessary for the advancement of my career, and because life is short and the world is large (and before you judge, ask yourself what you are willing to personally sacrifice for your environmental conscience). I also fly because my political philosophy is more towards institutionalized solutions, participatory democracy, cap-and-trade agreements, carbon taxes, etc, and less towards individual activism, especially when it comes to collective-action problems on the scale of global warming. What's interesting is that this precise philosophical debate is the subject of the book The Rebel Sell by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, which itself was partially the inspiration for the writing of the Rebel Cell, and in the play Dizraeli's character and my character fight the debate out in several rounds of politically-charged rap battling. But in the play we play ourselves five years in the future, with frequent flash-backs to the semi-autobiographical present, which means the play continually absorbs and mirrors the real trajectories of our parallel hip-hop careers, as art imitates life imitating art.

At this point, however, I have flown from Vancouver to Hawaii to Vancouver to London to Vancouver to Sydney to Adelaide to Canberra to Vancouver to London and tomorrow to Cairo, and that's just in 2010! So I wouldn't be surprised if this little episode and its points of contention end up in the next re-write of the play : )

In the meantime, wish us luck in the cradle of civilization. I'm going to see the pyramids!

Poets vs MCs

I'm often asked, what's the difference between a spoken word poet and a rapper? Or, to put it differently, why did you choose to be a rapper instead of a spoken word poet? Well, in January I had a chance to compete in an amazing event in Brighton called "Poets vs MCs" in which the hip-hop community and the spoken word community come out to represent their respective camps and talk some (good-humoured) trash about one another, so I took that opportunity to write a new rap/poem spelling out the difference as I see it. Brighton has an amazingly cohesive hip-hop scene and a parallel but equally cohesive spoken word scene and I don't know another city that could pull of an event like this with so much firepower yet also with such a good rapport on all sides year after year (it was the seventh annual!).

I was representing for the MCs, needless to say, and I got to spark things off in round one, but if you follow the youtube link you can watch the whole thing, round by round, and I have also posted the lyrics of my piece below. This one is dedicated to Shane Koyczan, who got more exposure for spoken word than any poet ever has before when he performed in the opening ceremony of the Vancouver Olympics with more than 3 billion people watching on television worldwide. Long live rap and poetry both, and viva la difference!

Click here to watch the video on youtube.





Poets vs MCs

Rappers are so obnoxious! Even the most incompetent
And most impoverished of us pose like we pimp hoes for profits
It’s simply implicit when we grip our own crotches
So excuse me for exposing the obvious
But poets are fascinated with self-flagellation
With exaggerated emotions and vocal masturbation
With layer after layer of phony fashion statements
Folded into their words – the proper verb is “invagination”
“In•vag•in•a•tion: the folding of a membrane or surface
In on itself to create a pocket or pouch”
But rappers are obsessed with form and function
With the intricate syllable structures of words
And the juxtapositions amongst them
For rappers, rhyme patterns are like sign-language instructions
Like computer hackers programming the crowd to have eruptions
But for poets that’s disgusting, pathetic approval-seeking
Poetry is supposed to be about truth speaking
About exposing your soul and letting go of control like the beats did
At the Nuyorican; it’s not about the response you’re receiving
But for rappers that’s exactly what it’s about
If you’re not in it to win it then get the fuck out
And if the shit that you’ve written isn’t sufficient to uplift the crowd
Then go recite the shit to yourself
But wait, isn’t that just the same old artistic debate
Over whether our creations come from a strange mystical place
That gives them an intrinsic weight that we can separate
From any attempt to measure them in a functionalist way?
Exactly! Poets indulge in rank mysticism
Rappers recognize the direct connection
Between effort and discipline and getting recognition
Poets want to be exorcists instead of physicians
That’s the essential difference between rappers and poets
We’re all entertainers, but MCs just happen to know it
But, didn't I just re-define a “poet” as an “uncharismatic showman”?
Yes, so now it’s time for a diplomatic moment
When it comes down to battles and gets pushy
I can generalize, like: “rappers are arrogant rookies
They act like dicks, and poets are all just big pussies”
But up close, this definition isn’t so good looking
I mean, how can I speak with so much certainty
When my whole analysis is stolen from Team America World Police?
And why am I so determined to give the third degree
To my brethren who get their bread like me, from the words they speak
Here’s the reason we need poets and rappers to be contrasted
We need to understand our differences if we want to combat them
So here’s a definite to help with your thought patterns:
All rappers are poets, but all poets are not rappers
Rap is a sub-category, a sub-class of poetry
We both have talents with metaphors and allegory
But when it comes to rhyme and rhythm, rappers simply have authority
And as for hip-hop culture? Well, that’s another story
Life is bigger than hip-hop, and hip-hop is bigger than rap
And rap is bigger than poetry, if you measure it by its impact
But if rap is a limb of poetry, then poetry’s bigger than that
So pick a branch and swing from it, as long as you get ‘em to clap
But if you can’t get applause in spite of your metaphors
Or if it’s lukewarm instead of uproarious because you hit writer’s block
Or creative menopause, then just get off the stage
In this regard, poetry and hip-hop’s the same
Ninety nine percent of all contenders get washed away
So whether you claim gangster or you’re in the conscious vein
There’s a direct line of descent from Dr. Faustus to Dr. Dre
And there was a time when poets made history, but it’s not today

Phenotypic Plasticity

Fellow Bipeds,

Last week I did my first tour of the Southern USA with the Rap Guide to Evolution, performing in Houston, Texas and Springfield, Missouri. Brace yourselves. Controversy was brewing from the start when I got a "conditional" invitation to perform at Missouri State University, co-sponsored by the departments of Biology, Psychology, and Bio-medicine. The condition was that I had to "tone down the creationist jabs", and it was imposed by the head of the Biology dept, who felt it would be a turn off for the non-science audience if their beliefs were attacked from the outset. The primary offending material was of course the chorus of the song Natural Selection: "The weak and the strong, Darwin got it goin' on / Creationism is dead wrong!", plus the song's third verse with the line: "If there is a personal god, then he's been jerkin' off".

I must admit I was a bit indignant about this at first. I didn't mind dropping the third verse from the song, which I often do for the sake of pithiness anyway, but the chorus? How could a Biology dept not stand behind the statement that creationism is dead wrong? Was it my presentation that was controversial, or evolution itself? And even if they disagree, isn't it condescending to sanitize it for them? To see how the British react to the song, check out this video from the Cambridge Darwin Festival last July (a soft audience, I concede).



So here's what set me straight. My first stop of the tour was in Texas, where I did two different lunchtime shows at two campuses of Houston Community College. For the first show I did a mix of Canterbury Tales and Evolution, omitting the song Natural Selection along with a few other chapters as a necessary abridgement, and the show was an unmitigated success. Then on my second day in Houston I stepped to the stage in front of a packed crowd of over a hundred college students and bit the bullet. My cries of "creationism is dead wrong!" were met with incredulous (and mostly hostile) stares, and the call and response part at the end: "When I say 'creationism is...' you say 'dead wrong!" was virtually all call and no response. The half dozen or so brave souls who joined in at first quickly realized that a hundred of their peers were staring them down and their weak cries of "dead wrong..." quickly tapered off. In comedy parlance I "died on my ass", and then spent the next hour clawing my way back from oblivion.

To my credit and theirs, by the end of the show I had won them back and got a hearty round of applause, and I even got respect after the show from a few avowed fundamentalist Christians for the gutsy freestyle part of Performance, Feedback, Revision, in which I mocked: "My friends at home were all skeptics / Like: 'You're rapping about evolution in Texas? / You must have a death wish / Man, you're gonna get lynched!' / Why? No religions get disrespected / Unless they're specifically un-scientific." But talking to a number of the students after the show, the common theme was "great performance, but you almost lost me with that opening piece". Even more to the point is the fact that I did lose quite a few of them, since about fifteen people indignantly walked out in the first ten minutes.

Contrast that once again with the response I get in England. For instance, here's a version of Performance, Feedback, Revision that I did in front of 3500 skeptics at the Hammersmith Apollo in December, part of Robin Ince's comedy variety show "Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People" which was recently aired on BBC4. Click here to watch it.



So what did I do in Missouri? I decided that the "condition" imposed on my show was actually a pretty sensible adjustment, but what should I do with the song? Skip it? Water it down to something vague like "alternative theories are dead wrong"? Like a good academic I opted for strategic obscurantism, substituting specific individuals for the debunked theory as a whole. The Missouri State University students were treated to the first ever performance of Natural Selection where the chorus went: "The weak and the strong, Darwin got it goin' on / William Paley was dead wrong... Richard Owen was dead wrong... Etc". To my mind this preserves the strength of the statement without foreclosing on my opportunities to raise consciousness in the ensuing hour, and only the most historically astute creationists will get the dig. Think of it as a form of phenotypic plasticity, allowing the show to adapt to diverse environments rather than face local extinction. At least, that's what I told myself. What do you all think: sell-out or gracious compromise?

Oh, and by the way, the Missouri show was better received than I had imagined at my most optimistic. They even had me autographing CDs and flyers afterward! I fear the South no more.

Tonight I fly to Australia for twenty seven performances of the Rap Guide to Evolution at the Adelaide Fringe Festival, starting Friday. And yes, those Aussie festival-goers will be getting the wild-type, with extra vigor. All my best,

Baba

PS - If any of you have friends in Australia, please direct them my way, or send them to the Facebook event.

A Valediction: For Bidding Mourning

Val•e•dic•tion from the Latin words for "farewell" and "speech". And who or what am I saying goodbye to? My home city of Vancouver, for one, and my friends and family, though no girlfriend this time around. Where am I going? On tour, to London to perform the Rebel Cell, which will be touring the UK throughout 2010. In fact, I'm writing this on the plane en route. If you're in London, come see us at the Greenwich Theatre this weekend. Click here for details.

This "leaving on a jet plane" lifestyle of mine is also the subject of my new music video, which I'd like to invite you to watch. "Valediction" is a work of creative non-fiction dramatizing the impact these constant tours have had on my past relationships (actually one in particular, but it's a recurrent theme). Of course, the subtext is clear: if the relationship was really working, would I have been so keen to go on tour? But how can a relationship grow and thrive when one is always on the move? It's a catch-22 I have come to accept, and the music video is my best attempt to capture it. So if this is a "recurrent theme" you must be wondering: is it me or is it them? Lack of chemistry or lack of will? Ask yourself that question often, all you singletons, and let me know if you discover an answer.

The video was directed by Syd Woodward and features Aaron Nazrul on vocals, with Lin Gardiner's usual star production. I hope you like it. (If it doesn't embed then click here.)



In other glorious news, this morning I got email confirmation that my grant application to the Wellcome Trust has been approved, which means I now have funding to create a series of professional music videos for the Rap Guide to Evolution CD. The mandate of the grant is to promote the "Public Understanding of Science" and it is my hope that the videos will be used in Biology classrooms around the world to provide an accessible introduction to evolutionary theory. And of course they will be available online for the general public as well, so I hope you will all help me spread them (once we've actually made them that is). This is going to be an awesome project for 2010, one that I am seriously looking forward to. If you don't know about the Wellcome Trust, you should check them out. It's the largest charity in the UK, spending hundreds of millions of pounds per year funding projects like life-saving biomedical research and the human genome project (and the occasional rap music video). Click here for more info.

If you haven't heard my Rap Guide to Evolution CD yet, you can download it by donation from my website. Have a listen and let your visual imagination roam.

And if you like the song "Valediction" and want to get yourself a digital download, click here.

Off to the races,

Baba

Evolutionary Retrospective

Neo-simians,

In the final hours of 2009, let us take a moment to reflect on this: up until 150 years ago, no one had the faintest idea why we look like we do, why we act like we do, or where we came from. Now we know, and we have Charles Darwin to thank. Three cheers!

So what do we do with this knowledge? Well, each of us reacts differently, but for my part I've spent most of the past year trying to celebrate and demystify the implications of Darwin's insights, and I must admit I've been having a blast. I met some of my intellectual heroes along the way (ie Dan Dennett, David Sloan Wilson, Sarah Hrdy, Richard Dawkins). A troubled African American teenager declared her newfound passion for science after seeing my performance; in Edinburgh they gave me an award for my troubles, and wonder of wonders I actually made a living with it. So why stop?

In August I got an email from David Buss, co-author of the recent book "Why Women Have Sex", suggesting I do a sequel specifically about Evolutionary Psychology (he also wrote the EP textbook), and I thought that sounded like a fine idea. So right now I'm in the reading phase, including Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate" and Matt Ridley's "Nature Via Nurture" next. So if you were to do a rap album and hip-hop comedy show about human behaviour, what would the required reading be? I'm open to suggestions, insights, dialogue, etc, but not dissuasion. It's too late for that.

Why? Because the truth is too exhilarating to reveal. For instance, I recently had the privilege of performing with Dawkins, Robin Ince, Ben Goldacre, and many others at a truly inspiring variety night called "Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People", a rationalist celebration of Christmas. Now for those of you in the process of clenching up, rest assured it was more about celebrating science than bashing religion. Picture 3,500 people in the sold-out Hammersmith Apollo Theatre in London declaring in unison: "I'm a African!" Click here to read a review from the comedy website Chortle (see paragraph twelve).

Why else? Because misconceptions about evolution are rife. For instance, I was recently the subject of a spurious article on the Discovery Institute's (intelligent design) website entitled "How Darwin Leads People to Eventually Say, 'Hitler Was O.K.'" What I actually said was that if our sex lives were like the sex lives of praying mantises (where the females eat the males during sex), then that's what our religions would be moralizing and our pop songs would be romanticizing ("She refuses to eat me / Cry me a river" etc). It's what comedians call a "joke" and philosophers call an "intuition pump", but according to the article what I said is an example of the "moral relativism" that leads to Nazism. Never mind the fact that Hitler himself was far from a moral relativist and indeed believed he was following God's will, the hysteria found in this article is the last bastion of the desperate, groping for an "objective" basis of morality while failing to imagine any conceivable alternative to divine injunction. As Robin Ince points out in one of his comedy sets: if Darwin leads to Hitler, then Newton leads to falling injuries (stupid gravity!) and Pythagoras leads to Toblerone. Follow this link for an exercise in intellectual cowardice and fallacious argument, from a History professor no less.

It's claptrap like this that reminds me of the need for clear voices amidst the gloom, and in the words of Michael Franti: "If I don't have enemies I'm not doin' my job". Not that I'm necessarily the clearest of voices, but I've gotten pretty good at paraphrasing : ) So my plan for 2010, besides creating a new show, is to tour The Rap Guide to Evolution extensively and keep spreading laughter and light. If you have any ideas or suggestions of places I could do this, please get in touch, and in the mean time I wish you all peace and prosperity in the new year. Sincerely,

Baba


PS - here's a brief overview of my touring plans for 2010, in case you're curious: UK in late January, American South in early February, Australia in February/March, UK in April, New York in early May, Western Canada in May/June (tree planting), England in June/July, Edinburgh in August, UK Rebel Cell tour in September/October/November.