Carl Woese: Rediscovering the Tree of Life

        In his book “The Creative Spark,” Augustin Fuentes views creativity as the cornerstone of humanity, essential in our evolution and perseverance as a species. Fuentes describes creativity as not occurring in a vacuum, or out of some miraculous coincidence, but instead as a collaborative, persistent, intrinsic act. A figure of modern science who embodies this is Carl R. Woese, a professor at UIC and a pioneer of evolutionary microbiology. 

In 1977, Woese, having developed a gene sequence-based understanding of biological organization, showing that the evolutionary history of lineages can be tracked to a common ancestral state, in turn discovered an enormous flaw with the way the phylogenetic tree was being understood. Before Woese, the phylogenetic tree, as first imagined by Charles Darwin in 1859, was accepted as having two original branches: Eukarya and Bacteria. A serial non-conformist, Woese was never interested in the popular methods and study of microbiology. He became fixated on RNA and thought it was key to discovering the origin of life. Through his exploration of the genetic material and the comparison of RNA structures across microbes, he created the first purely scientific, and not merely theoretical, phylogenetic tree. On that tree, right at the base, along with Eukarya and Bacteria, was one of the most significant contributions to the understanding of evolution, a new domain, Archaea.                           Woese's findings and interpretations of his data clashed with the popular scientific wisdom of the time. The model of “deep evolution” then—still taught in some textbooks today—was that all life is one of two kinds, prokaryote or eukaryote, the prokaryotes having given rise to “more modern” eukaryotes. Instead, Woese's data showed that the concept of prokaryotes had no evolutionary footing. The eukaryotic nuclear lineage (in contrast to the bacterially derived mitochondria and chloroplasts) did not originate more recently than bacteria or archaea, but was primordial and a sister group to the archaea. These claims enraged many evolutionists, and Woese received harsh criticism from his peers, eventually communicating his frustrations, "I point at the moon and they focus on my finger!" Through his perseverance, commitment to his data, and unmaneuverability in the face of retaliation, his three-domain classification is now widely accepted and is supported by much correlation.

While Woese is often portrayed as a lone maverick, his work was deeply social—another aspect of creativity exemplified in Fuentes’ book. Creativity flourishes in community. Woese collaborated with researchers like George Fox and relied on samples and data shared by scientists around the world, working off of Darwin's framework. His success wasn’t just due to asking a good question and having a good idea—it was due to being able to bring that idea to life, and into acceptance within the scientific community.

Although Woese's work is now popularly accepted, it (along with almost every major scientific breakthrough) was all but shunned by microbiologists and evolutionists for years. I’m left with a question that I don't know the answer to: Why is society so resistant to creativity, when it owes its existence?

From Astroworld to Utopia: The Evolution of Travis Scott’s Sound

            Travis Scott, whose real name is Jacques Bermon Webster II, has been releasing music for nearly a decade and a half and has been working in the music industry for nearly 2 decades. Travis Scott's albums Utopia and Astroworld are both alike and different. The albums at their cores are similar because they are made by the same artist but are different because Scott refined his craft and knew what he wanted to do with his sound.

            Astroworld is a psychedelic trip into Travis’s mind, revisiting the feelings he felt when visiting his favorite, now defunct, amusement park, Astroworld. Astroworld, the album, instills a sense of nostalgia in the listener, as if you were feeling the same emotions that Scott feels when thinking about the amusement park. Many fans consider Astroworld Scott’s best work and also debate whether it could be the best rap album of all time. Even after the release of Utopia, many fans continue to return to Astroworld simply due to the feelings that it instills in the listener. 

            Travis Scott’s next album, Utopia, would generate much discussion after its release. Many fans were disappointed with the album due to the long wait between albums, 5 years, and the fact that they did not believe the album was better than Astroworld. Utopia had been in the works since the release of Astroworld and had been teased since 2020; with that being said, the hype for the album was unbelievable. Scott had said on multiple occasions that he was returning to his roots with this album after getting the idea from his daughter when listening to some of his earlier music with him. With this return to his roots, he also left behind the psychedelic production from Astroworld that so many fans adored. Rick Rubin contributed his ideas to the album, and this can be felt. Rubin states in his book that he believes that when creating, you are always collaborating, whether that is with the world, your experiences, your tools, your audience, or yourself. This idea of always collaborating can be seen in the album with this idea of Scott returning to his roots. In the years after the release of Utopia, fans have become more positive in their opinions of the album, with some even liking it more than Astroworld. 

 

Alex Warren and the Gift of Generative Thinking

 In his book Culture Care, Makoto Fujumura shares a story from his life about a time when he had nothing. The story goes that Makoto and Judy were living in Connecticut with barely any money for food or rent. Judy comes home with a bouquet of flowers and Makoto gets frustrated, since they barely have enough money to afford dinner that night. Then Judy says, “We need to feed our souls, too”. That line from his wife is what sent Fujumura on a thirty-year quest to redefine care in our society.

According to Fujumura, there are three pillars of generative thinking: genesis moments, generosity, and generational thinking. When I first read these “three G’s” an artist immediately came to mind, Alex Warren. Not only is his story incredibly similar to Fujumura’s, he also exemplifies his “three G’s”

Twenty-five-year-old Alex Warren first rose to fame in 2019, when he was part of the viral Hype House. After that, he went on to develop his music career, with his first viral hit being “Burning Down,” which reached the Billboard Hot 100 in 2024. In 2025, he was nominated five times at the MTV Video Music Awards, winning Best New Artist, and performing his song “Ordinary”.

Fujumura defines “genesis moments” as moments of creativity, growth, and failure that spark renewed conviction in a person. Warren has been creating ever since he was very young and continued to create even when dealing with his mother’s alcoholism and homelessness. Early in his social media career, when he was mainly posting YouTube videos, Warren was accused of copying David Dobrik, a YouTube star with more fame and a similar content style. His videos and music were met with harsh criticism, with many Dobrik fans saying that he would never amount to any sort of real fame. His music career had a slow start, with him first releasing music in 2021, but not gaining traction until 2024. Throughout all the criticism and hate he was receiving, he still created. He still worked tirelessly at his music and YouTube content. Today, many of his songs stem from the hardships he has faced. He was able to turn his failures into something beautiful.

Fujumura says that generative thinking is fueled by generosity. Warren’s greatest generosity is his wife, Kouvr. Alex met Kouvr online in 2018, while she was living with her parents in Hawaii and he was living in his car. “Before You Leave Me”, his first song to hit the charts, was inspired by their long-distance relationship and the fear that came with it. Kouvr later moved to the mainland US and lived with Alex in his car.  Alex credits Kouvr’s kindness and support for his success. He said that without her by his side, he’s unsure if he would have had the strength to keep going. Two of his most popular songs, “Ordinary” and “Carry You Home,” were inspired by their love.

Fujumura says “our lives are directed or constrained by paths paved by the generations before us”. In this he explains his concept of generational thinking. Warren lost his father to cancer when he was nine and his mother to alcoholism when he was seventeen. He grew up with a single mother who was an alcoholic and was a homeless teen. By all societal standards, he should have failed. His father was the one who encouraged him to create music, gifting him his first guitar, and his mother instilled Christian beliefs in him. These two gifts from his parents helped him succeed. To cope with the death of his father, he turned to writing songs. His music is inspired by the gospel songs he heard in church during his childhood. Both of these themes accumulate in his song “Eternity,” in which he writes about the deaths of both his parents and the melody is heavily inspired by gospel.

Fujumura said, “when we are generative, we draw on creativity to bring into being something fresh and life-giving”. I find that quote fitting, as Alex Warren won the Best New Artist of the Year award. Warren transforms the pain of his childhood into music for everyone to enjoy.

Stone Tools and Stone Fruits: Evolution in the Acquisition of Food

    In The Creative Spark, I am drawn by how Agustin Fuentes describes the evolution of our early Homo sapiens ancestors, most particularly how he describes their first uses of creativity. Life for our early ancestors centered around food, and the more advanced they became in the collection of food, the more successful they became as a species. So, they diversified their food collection, becoming better able to adapt and survive. This supreme ability to collect food made it so that the brains and bodies of the generations to come would continue to grow bigger, stronger, and better able to advance the lives of the Homo sapien species.

Fuentes notes how early humans learned to make tools and harness fire to better collect and prepare food, and they ate a wide range of plants, fruits, nuts, flowers, and animals from land and water. Yet, at some point, we strayed from this diversity. This doesn’t seem obvious because you can go into a grocery store and find cashews from Brazil, bananas from Southeast Asia, and coffee from Africa, but the diversity we lost was within these plant species. You’ve likely only ever seen a yellow banana, but there are over 1,000 banana varietals, with some being red or even blue. 

This monoculturing of produce has occurred in almost every fruit and vegetable you know. One artist, Sam Van Akin, hopes to conserve some of these lost fruits on his “Tree of 40 Fruit.”

Sam Van Akin is popular for his works that combine biology, botany, and conservation. He is most known for creating The Open Orchard, a native fruit varietal orchard that replanted varieties not grown in decades on New York’s Governors Island, and his many plant grafting projects – most notably the Tree of 40 Fruit. Grafting is a technique to join two plants together. This is most often done with flowering bushes to grow different colored blooms on the same plant. Van Akin took this one step further, debuting his grafted stone fruit Frankenstein in 2014 with rare varietals of peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, cherries, and almonds.

This project is a creative form of conservation and an homage to Van Akin’s childhood. The project began when he heard about a 200-year-old orchard in New York closing due to a lack of funding. Having grown up on a farm, he decided to buy the orchard and made it his mission to preserve the ancient and heirloom stone fruit varieties grown there. Inspired by his background in sculpture and installation art, he began his journey of grafting and creating beautiful, multicolored trees. Van Aken also tracked the blooming seasons of all these varietals to help further the conservation efforts of these fruits. Now, his trees are installed around the U.S., acting not only as stunning, living works of art but also as representations of the creativity we need to preserve the wonderful biodiversity of our planet.

Sam Van Akin saw the increasing monoculturization of stone fruits as a problem and came up with a creative way to both challenge this norm and ensure the conservation of some of America’s natural flora. We may be a long way from the stone tools and sharpened sticks of the early Homo sapiens, but we are always in need of innovative ways to support our food system and ensure the preservation of our species.

Learn more about Sam and his trees!

https://www.samvanaken.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9EuJ9QlikY

https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/03/living/tree-40-fruit-sam-van-aken-feat

Beyonce and the Benefit of Collaboration

In Nick Cave and Sean O’Hagan’s book Faith, Hope, and Carnage, Nick Cave talks about the way it’s sometimes held against him that he “always needs a collaborator.” To the criticisms of relying on collaboration, he provides the very strong counter argument that collaboration as a musician is beneficial, not a negative, because being open to others’ ideas is a great way to improve the quality of the art you're putting out. 

I agree with Cave's argument, and I think a modern day artist who unfairly receives this same criticism is Beyoncé. For years, a way people have attempted to discredit Beyoncé’s artistry is by mentioning the amount of writers listed in the credits of her songs. Countless snarky comments have been made about how she needs a ton of writers to be able to put a song together because she cant do it herself. 

The reason the list of writers on some of her songs is so extensive - specifically on songs from her two most recent albums RENAISSANCE and COWBOY CARTER - is mostly due to the use of samples. Since a focus of these two albums is to highlight her previous influences of house and country music, and paying tribute to those influences, samples are included as a part of that vision. 

But even without the samples, Beyoncé still does have multiple writers on her songs. And this is a good thing. While it’s impressive when an artist does everything by themselves, Beyoncé’s ability to collaborate with other musicians is what has kept her fresh and exciting for so many years, because each album is something new.

Beyoncé’s ability to collaborate is the reason she was able to release the studio albums BEYONCÉ, Lemonade, RENAISSANCE, and COWBOY CARTER back to back, each project a defining sound for her in completely different ways, each project further solidifying her status as an icon. Collaboration is not a weakness, but a tool for making strides in your artistry that you might not have been able to access alone. 

Lila Downs: Blending Mexican Folk Music with Poignant Social Commentary

Lila Downs is a Mexican-American, Mixtec singer-songwriter from Oaxaca, Mexico. Her music embraces a traditional and indigenous sound, blended with modern hip-hop and pop that serves as the foundation for her highly emotive songs, which explore identity, social justice, and violence as central themes. Her most recent album, “La Sanchez”, released in 2023, focuses on her relationship with her late romantic and musical partner Paul Cohen. Before that, Lila Downs released “Balas y Chocolate” (Bullets and Chocolate) in 2015, an album that addressed the violence in Mexico, as well as topics of injustice and cultural roots. She and her band performed several songs from this album for NPR, as part of their Tiny Desk Concert series.

The first song Lila Downs and her band perform is called “Humito de Copal”, which translates to “Little Smoke of Copal”, Copal being the resin from a South American tree that is lit as incense during traditions like the Day of the Dead. The word “copal” comes from the indigenous Nahuatl word “copalli” which means incense. Based solely on the title of the song, there are clear influences of traditions and indigenous culture. Tradition and native influences are also present in the instruments used, including trumpets, percussion, and guitar, which create a sound reminiscent of Mexican folk music, mariachi, and cumbia. The lyrics of the song describe a search for the truth and express her identity through declarative statements.

“Soy latina, soy mazateca

Soy el testimonio de la naturaleza”

(“I’m Latina, I’m Mazateca

I am nature’s testimony”)

The references to the earth and her indigenous roots are powerful and enduring, applying as far back in history as the early Homo Sapiens. In The Creative Spark, Agustín Fuentes traces human creativity through the early development of our species. Humans have always been part of the Earth’s ecosystem and have forged community and a sense of belonging in order to survive, topics Lila Downs continues to discuss today. She expresses the same compassion for others and management of language that made us a successful species in the first place.

In terms of her creative process, Lila Downs draws upon her identity and the social and political events happening around her, especially those taking place in Mexico and Latin America. She also depends upon other musicians for inspiration and as members of her band. While she sometimes performs solo, in her Tiny Desk Concert, a small army of musicians surrounds her. Among the guitarists, drummers, and brass players is her husband, Paul Cohen, who served as a crucial musical partner for Downs up until his death. Historically, collaboration among members of our species has allowed for our survival. In Creative Spark, Fuentes explains how early humans’ ability to band together for things like hunting allowed for a delegation of tasks and overall increased effectiveness. For Lila Downs, collaborating with other artists allows for a sharing of ideas and the creation of multilayered, meaningful songs. 

Lila Downs creates stories in her songs that serve to revitalize and uplift traditional Latin musical styles and build connections among those who are moved by her music by drawing upon various musical styles, languages, inspirational artists, and her own cultural identity.

Hozier's "Nina Cried Power"

 Makoto Fujimura, in Culture Care, writes: 

“Such a vision by its nature a challenge to dictators and totalitarian regimes—a threat to those whose power depends on holding humanity at the level of survival or, worse, on eliminating diverse elements from societies.” 

In his writing, Fujimura points out that creativity is not just an aesthetic, but an act of resistance and power. When a group in power is trying to reduce society to survival, art can bring life back into a culture that is devoid of creativity. This art gives people an anchor to build around and to use for motivation to get up and make changes. 

Nina Simone

The musical artist Hozier, is known for his call to action during his concerts and the music he produces highlighting the need for change. This is most apparent in his song “Nina Cried Power”, where he pays tribute to artists like Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, and Mavis Staples. These artists use their music as weapons against injustice and unite people to fight together. 

 

By opening the song with the line: 

“It’s not the waking, it's the rising”, 

Hozier insists that awareness alone is not enough, but action is also required. Hozier then goes on to list names:

 “Nina cried power / Billie cried power / Mavis cried power”, 

bringing the listener through the history of other artists using their voice to unite society. These artists, similarly to Hozier, used their platform to confront systems designed to silence, separate, and suppress the people. Nina Simone used her performances as an act of protest and closed her shows with her thought provoking song, “Sinnerman”. Billie Holiday forced audiences to face the horror of racial violence and Mavis Staples is considered to have written the soundtrack of the civil rights movement. These works of art challenged the leadership and the systems that were keeping people divided and oppressed. 

Mavis Staples

Billie Holiday

In Hozier’s second verse: 

                                “And everything that we’re denied / By keeping the divide”, 

Shows how regimes exploit and reinforce division to maintain power. By keeping society divided due to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or any other differentiation, we are blocking the way to a better future. This directly corresponds with Fujimura’s warning in his writing warning the people that powerful people eliminate diversity to ensure that the people remain unable to rise together. The song’s bridge: 

“Power has been cried by those stronger than me”,

Brings the focus back to the empowerment of people. Looking towards and following other leaders is not enough, one must become a leader themselves. It can be easy to follow silently in the footsteps of history or people that are currently fighting oppression. But, until we all become leaders in our own way and break through the barriers set to keep us apart, the regime will continue. 

Together, Fujimura’s reflection and Hozier’s song show us that culture is never neutral, but is an act of resistance. Whether its words, songs, or other mediums, the artist has the power to challenge a society that aims to silence them. When an artist creates a piece of resistance, the people have a common piece to unite around and inspire others to join.