Thank you for your introduction, Chris. Thank you David, Helen, Daniel, Ridhi and John for coming to support our effort. And thank you everyone, for coming. My name is GZA from The Wu Tang Clan. It is an honor to be here at Teachers College to discuss Science Genius. Particularly on 12/12/12. Since 2001, I have done something to commemorate the triple number date. But I can't think of a better way to culminate the tradition than to be here with all of you to talk about this program
In the last year I was able to meet with some of the top scientists in the world, including those whom you've just heard from. At MIT I met with Biological Oceanographer Penny Chisholm, Geneticist Eric Lander, the founding director of The Broad Institute at MIT. At Cornell University I met Alexander Gaeta and last but not least, Neil DeGrasse Tyson. It was incredibly humbling and inspiring to meet with these people but I do believe that the future Penny's, David's and Neil's are the young students that are in the NYC public schools. Not only was it interesting to see how dedicated and committed they were to their work, it was also interesting to see how excited they were to hear that I was incorporating science into my works
My next album will be entitled DARK MATTER, which is scheduled to be released in 2013. It will be a Cosmic journey through the universe. A galactic adventure. A Personal look into a dark and distant past. Matter that influences the evolution of the universe gravitationally. The goal is to influence the evolution of hip hop and schooling
Now that hip hop has become the single most dominant cultural touchstone in the lives of most youth, Chris Edmin, Rapgenius and I have come together to sponsor Science Genius. We chose hip hop as an art form to educate the listeners about scientific topics. As I said before I am not a science teacher. I go into classrooms as an artist and provide a model for students to communicate the information learned from their science teachers
My role in the process is to encourage students to compose creative writing, not just through rhyme, but through a metaphoric narrative approach to animate the science concepts so that the material can be digested by students in a interdisciplinary way. The rhymes are a starting point to introduce this technique of seeing science in a new way, a new context. I challenge students to not be too literal and write compelling stories. Make it "half short, twice strong." Light as an atom to where it doesn't trouble the soul of the listener, but heavy as a neutron star to where it's mind boggling
One thing that I try to impart in the classroom is that the rhyme must be clear, eloquent, witty and clever. I challenge students to make sense of complex information while maintaining the high standards of serious lyricism
Science Genius is an urban science initiative created and run by emcee, GZA/the Genius, Christopher Emdin from Columbia University’s Teachers College, and Rap Genius.
Over the course of one semester, 10 NYC public high school classes learn various science topics and construct heavily-scientific raps about these topics to demonstrate an acute understanding of the topics.
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