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Baba Brinkman
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GRANTHAM, Pa. (Oct. 17, 2005) —
Baba Brinkman’s “The Rap Canterbury Tales,” a one-man production of modern genius, is coming to campus, sponsored by the Messiah College Poets & Writers Series. Those familiar with Geoffrey Chaucer’s language will be astonished to hear renditions of the age-old stories in words and rhythms vastly different from the Middle English of the original “Tales.” The performance will be held on Nov. 7 at 8 p.m. in Hostetter Chapel, located on Messiah’s Grantham campus. In the spirit of Brinkman’s production, which seeks to make “The Canterbury Tales” available to a wider audience, the show will be free and open to the public.
“The Rap Canterbury Tales” is the brainchild of Vancouver native Baba Brinkman. Written to increase the accessibility of the “Tales,” Brinkman’s adaptations have a modern feel, yet seek to maintain the original narratives in order that educators may use his material in the classroom. He explains that his translations “stay as close as possible to the tone and thrust of the original ‘Tales,’ while completely updating the language into a lively hip-hop rhyme style.”
This updating has been progressing for almost a decade. In 1999, Brinkman began experimenting with adaptations of “The Canterbury Tales.” He was working on a thesis comparing Chaucer’s language and poetics to those of rap artists, and the project, according to Brinkman, “seemed a natural extension.” He loved the “Tales,” but found that, because of the antiquated language, most people had very little interaction with them. Wanting to pass along his own pleasure in reading and studying Chaucer’s work, and desiring a way to unite the worlds of rap music and literary poetry, he set about creating the adaptations that have become widely popular. “The Rap Canterbury Tales” now takes the forms of a solo theatrical performance, a series of workshops and presentations for educational purposes and a CD recording.
Brinkman’s dual interests in rap and English studies orient him with the unique ability to build bridges between often disparate arenas: rap culture and the literary academic community. The two are usually seen as separate worlds, and yet as Brinkman performed his undergraduate studies in English in 1998, he found that rap and poetry had a good deal in common. He completed a B.A. at Simon Fraser University and an M.A. in Medieval and Renaissance English Literature at the University of Victoria, and went about the unprecedented work of, as he put it, “increasing awareness of hip-hop lyrics as poetry.”
In 2004, he created Babasword Productions, a company with the express purpose of producing “educational literature-based entertainment.” Since that time, he has made several albums, performed internationally in such cities as Prague, Montreal and Edinburgh, and orchestrated a “Rap is Poetry” concert. Cambridge University sponsored him in the spring of 2005 to go on tour across England, performing for more than thirty schools.
