Science & Tech

Student Raps About Cell Reproduction for Extra Credit, Gets Props from Common

by Matthew Hart
Nov 6 2017 • 3:00 PM

For an extra credit assignment in biology, college student Julien Turner decided to write and produce a rap music video all about cell reproduction. And not only is the track, titled “XY Cell Life” — a remix of Lil Uzi Vert’s “XO Tour Llif3” — jam-packed with informative bits of information about everything from meiosis to cytokinesis, it’s also a decent earworm that you can bump in the lab until the blood-spinning plasma separators fall off the table. Although you really shouldn’t let that happen.

Turner’s music video was recently posted to Reddit, as well as Twitter, where it quickly became a hit. As of this writing, the video has been retweeted close to 150,000 times (by musician Common, among others), which stands as a testament to the sick hook that is the nucleus of this song: The DNA starts to unwiiiind, the RNA reads the other siiiide, meiosis is the key to making liiiife… Try to get it out of your head if you want, but there’s a good chance that the hook has already invaded you like a virus.Turner and his younger 15 year-old brother, who helped to make the music video, noted on Reddit that they “have been in filmmaking for the last 6 years,” and that this is one of their lowest quality videos ever made, production-wise, and yet still their most successful to date. The brothers have made multiple other projects together, under their studio banner Dreadhead Films.

As for the most pertinent question here, regarding whether or not Turner received the extra credit, the answer is yes. He also may have inadvertently popped the lid on a market for science education rap videos. If he’s willing to take requests, we’d like to suggest anything involving the seriously complicated CRISPR technique. At least it’s easy to rhyme with Cas9. (See?)

What do you think about this cell reproduction rap video? Does it make you wanna DNA-hey-hey-hey errrryday day day day? Spit hot fire in the comments below!

Images: Julien Turner 

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