“Prospero vs. Caliban,” a rap battle between Neil Koshy and Rahul Soni, explores the exaggerated antipathy between Prospero and Caliban while commenting on the importance of performativity in The Tempest itself. The two raps draw on both Shakespeare’s The Tempest and José Enrique Rodó’s Ariel, which uses the characters from The Tempest to argue for a Eurocentric Latin American aesthetic distinct from the dominating culture of the United States.

Koshy begin’s by portraying Rodó’s Prospero arguing for a “new era/ Where values are fixed on true beauty and education.” Kokshy allows this preoccupation with aesthetics to guide the insults Prospero directs at Caliban and the U.S. The final couplet, which rhymes “power” with “shower,” reiterates the central claim of Koshy’s implicit argument: that Rodó’s fixation on aesthetics (a shower) veils a deeper concern for the aesthetics of power.

Soni responds with careful attention to Caliban’s speech. Of course by making Caliban an actor in a rap battle, Soni gives him agency and a voice that is largely denied in The Tempest and to some extent recuperated in Aimée Césaire’s A Tempest. Soni’s Caliban turns Prospero’s words back on him— he may be called “ugly,” but he reclaims the power to define himself through his “beautiful speech.” At the conclusion, a throwaway connection to “alternative facts” and the Trump administration offers commentary on power dynamics of the current political climate, as well as on the power (or magic) of speech to shape reality. Finally, by claiming victory for Caliban in the rap battle and denying Prospero the audience’s “release,” this project, like A Tempest, literally gives Caliban the final word, demonstrating his ultimate power over Prospero, the shape of his narrative, and us as the audience.

Watch the live performance here.

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