>A Valediction: For Bidding Mourning

Val•e•dic•tion from the Latin words for “farewell” and “speech”. And who or what am I saying goodbye to? My home city of Vancouver, for one, and my friends and family, though no girlfriend this time around. Where am I going? On tour, to London to perform the Rebel Cell, which will be touring the UK throughout 2010. In fact, I’m writing this on the plane en route. If you’re in London, come see us at the Greenwich Theatre this weekend. Click here for details.

This “leaving on a jet plane” lifestyle of mine is also the subject of my new music video, which I’d like to invite you to watch. “Valediction” is a work of creative non-fiction dramatizing the impact these constant tours have had on my past relationships (actually one in particular, but it’s a recurrent theme). Of course, the subtext is clear: if the relationship was really working, would I have been so keen to go on tour? But how can a relationship grow and thrive when one is always on the move? It’s a catch-22 I have come to accept, and the music video is my best attempt to capture it. So if this is a “recurrent theme” you must be wondering: is it me or is it them? Lack of chemistry or lack of will? Ask yourself that question often, all you singletons, and let me know if you discover an answer.

The video was directed by Syd Woodward and features Aaron Nazrul on vocals, with Lin Gardiner’s usual star production. I hope you like it. (If it doesn’t embed then click here.)

In other glorious news, this morning I got email confirmation that my grant application to the Wellcome Trust has been approved, which means I now have funding to create a series of professional music videos for the Rap Guide to Evolution CD. The mandate of the grant is to promote the “Public Understanding of Science” and it is my hope that the videos will be used in Biology classrooms around the world to provide an accessible introduction to evolutionary theory. And of course they will be available online for the general public as well, so I hope you will all help me spread them (once we’ve actually made them that is). This is going to be an awesome project for 2010, one that I am seriously looking forward to. If you don’t know about the Wellcome Trust, you should check them out. It’s the largest charity in the UK, spending hundreds of millions of pounds per year funding projects like life-saving biomedical research and the human genome project (and the occasional rap music video). Click here for more info.

If you haven’t heard my Rap Guide to Evolution CD yet, you can download it by donation from my website. Have a listen and let your visual imagination roam.

And if you like the song “Valediction” and want to get yourself a digital download, click here.

Off to the races,

Baba