Recently, I saw Baba Brinkman perform the Rap Guide to Evolution, a fast-paced performance that takes a look at Darwin’s theory of evolution and seminal publication, Descent of Man, with a musical twist.
The Rap Guide to Evolution uses hip-hop to explain evolution while simultaneously exploring the origins and complexities of hip-hop culture. It was a great show, complete with audience participation, but the one thing that really stuck out to me was his lesson that evolution, biology, history, art and science all share the same framework or process of growth.
Great art, like great science and great evolution, requires three steps in order to move forward toward some greater perfection:
- Performance
- Feedback
- Revision
First, their is a performance — a first show, a trial of some sort. Second, this performance requires audience or environmental feedback in order to learn and grow. Third, the performance is revised in some way that incorporates the feedback — it evolves — and it becomes something new and original. And then the process begins again.
Performance. Feedback. Revision.
Think about your brand stories and the way that you have told them over time. I’ll bet they’ve changed as you’ve incorporated new ideas and reflected feedback from your audience. And then you’ve taken your new story to your audience to see what they think. It’s a natural, self-selecting cycle that helps to improve not only your brand stories, but the way you tell them as well.
And you can even tell them in hip-hop.