Baba Brinkman is a Canadian rap artist, writer, and former tree-planter who worked in the Rocky Mountains every summer for over ten years, personally planting more than one million trees. He is also a scholar with a Masters in Medieval and Renaissance English Literature. His thesis drew parallels between the worlds of hip-hop music and literary poetry. After graduating in 2003, Baba began his career as a rap troubadour.
To date Baba has written or co-written five hip-hop theatre shows, including The Rap Canterbury Tales, The Rap Guide to Evolution, and The Rebel Cell, with MC Dizraeli. He won three awards and entertained thousands while performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for six of the past seven years. Baba is also the founder of Lit Fuse Records, which represents Aaron Nazrul, Smoky Tiger, and Mud Sun, as well as his own music. Besides executive producing and developing new talent through his label, Baba has recorded and released seven solo albums since 2004.
The Rap Guide to Evolution won the prestigious Scotsman Fringe First Award in Edinburgh in 2009, and went on to tour the USA, Australia, and the UK, including two appearances at regional TED conferences, an off-Broadway showcase, and an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show on US national television. Baba’s hip-hop tribute to Charles Darwin is set to transfer to New York City in the Spring of 2011, produced by Dovetail Productions.
For the 2010 Fringe Baba created two new shows (and albums, produced by Mr. Simmonds), a sequel to the Evolution show entitled “The Rap Guide to Human Nature” and “Rapconteur,” a new set of oral epics adapted to rap, including Beowulf, Gilgamesh, and the Finnish Kalevala.
When he is not touring, Baba Brinkman resides in Vancouver.