In 2008, CERN produced an amusing low-budget YouTube video called "The LHC Rap." It stormed the Interwebz, garnering some 5.7 million hits to date. But just like East Coast and West Coast rappers have their rivalry, so, too, does CERN and Fermilab, home of the Tevatron -- the particle accelerator where many of the major particles were discovered in the 20th century, including the top quark.
Fermilab hits back this week with their own mock-rap video, "Particle Business." Per the press release:
"Particle Business" highlights the quest to discover how the universe evolved and the David and Goliath-like competition of discovery between the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, CERN in Europe, and Fermilab, outside of Chicago, IL. Their goal, the Higgs-Boson, a fundamental particle thought to give matter mass, theorized but as yet unable to be measured. "Particle Business" combines a phat hip-hop beat with lyrics about particle physics, limits on science funding, the competitive-collaboration that exists in science research and urging people to watch television like Mr. Wizard's World and Carl Sagan's Cosmos instead of the entertainment of MTV.
The video features (among others) Ben Kilminster, a scientist with the CDF experiment at Fermilab who performs with a local band called Drug Sniffing Dogs. You can also catch him in more serious mode in the PBS documentary about Fermilab, The Atom Smashers. Kilminster partnered with Tampa-based rapper/producer Steven Rush, a.k.a. funky49, featured in Wired as a Nerdcore Hip-Hop All Star. And for the actual filming, they turned to Dan Lamoureux, director of Nerdcore for Life, a documentary that explores the world of "geek rap". Mostly seen to date at US film festivals, the documentary gets its DVD release this month.
You can definitely see Lamoureaux's hand in the finished product. On a technical level, the "Particle Rap" has, shall we say, higher production values than the "LHC Rap," and the lyrics are less forced and scan a bit better. Check it out:
Don't you love all the shots of Rush/funky49 doing his Beastie Boys impression in front of a field of bison? That's not to say we don't love the original "LHC Rap" by AlpineKat, which has its own geeky, nerdcore charm. Here it is again, for anyone who wants to compare and contrast. Let the physics rap wars begin!
Tags: Humor, Laboratories, Particle Physics
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