“Yo momma’s carbon footprint is so fat…it shows up on NASA’s instruments”
No, this is not a ‘yo mama joke’ but rap lines from Canadian rapper Baba Brinkman from his latest work – ‘Rap Guide to Climate Change’
“If you bring up climate change as a subject, peoples’ responses are overwhelmingly negative,” Mr. Brinkman told the Observer. “People think it’s hopeless and they don’t know what to do, but I want people to be inspired to learn more.”
With climate change being the most topical issue of the century, Baba Brinkman has taken the opportunity to bring climate change awareness through a universal medium – music.
The rapper believes music is a universal medium to reach out through awareness for climate change.
“Music is designed to be catchy and to get stuck in your head and to get you singing along. There’s a lot of lyrical witticism, punch lines and metaphors in there; just ways of thinking about climate change that would be counterintuitive but are designed to be memorable. That’s not just my music, that’s what all music is like,” he said.
And he’s not just about creating lyrical rhymes but stating actual facts backed up by experts.
“I’ve kind of created this formula over the years. Each of my records from the “Rap Guide” albums is peer-reviewed by experts in the field. So as I’m devising the lyrics, I’m reaching out to scientists and the people who really study this stuff first-hand,” stated Brinkman.
Baba Brinkman is not just rapping to save our planet, he’s personally planted more than one million trees while also an award winning playwright, who combines hip-hop music with literature, theater, and science.
Brinkman hopes that his music will give the listeners a sense of curiosity and provoke them to take a more active interest in climate change.
“I think if I can snap people out of apathy and make them feel like: yes, this matters and yes, I need to get informed on it, then that’ll be enough…You can’t change the world, but you may be able to change a room full of people.”
If you’re interested to know more about his current work you can visit Deutsche Welle to see his full interview.
