Back in 2002, the immeasurably talented MC of Blackalicious known as Gift of Gab wrote a lyrically athletic track called "Chemical Calisthenics." For those who could follow his rapid-fire style, it was an immensely great science lesson and one of the best raps about chemistry ever. But he's got nothing on Jabari Johnson, a high school senior from Harlem who can rhyme about kinetic energy better than most people can talk about it.

"Here's the lesson, I know it kinda hurts but if you truly want to work then there must be progressions cause, FD=W the rule, and the unit measurement for the product is called joules, cool," Johnson raps on "Quest for Joulelry," which outlines the physics equation of Force times Distance equals Work.

Johnson isn't the only high schooler rapping about science. Thanks to a program called Science Genius, he and some 300 other New York-area high school students spent a semester using rap to help them learn science in an after-school program. The young MC, however, has been crowned the best; on June 21 he won the Science Genius B.A.T.T.L.E.S. (Bringing Attention to Transforming Teaching, Learning and Engagement in Science) competition, which was organized by an assistant professor of science education at Teachers College at Columbia University named Chris Emdin, the Wu-Tang Clan member GZA, and website Rap Genius, which chronicles all of the meanings in rap lyrics (amongst other things).

"For many students who are not successful, this is just something that they know how to do," Emdin told WNYC's radio show SchoolBook. However, some students had to work just as hard at mastering lyricism as they did at mastering topics like DNA, the Big Bang, or Darwinism. Tara Ware, a teacher at Validus Preparatory Academy in the Bronx, told The New York Times that the program also taught her students problem-solving and hard work. "All my kids love rap, but some aren’t good at it, so they really had to work at it," she said. "It took more time to write a rap than write a three-page paper."

GZA, a long-time science advocate who judged the rap competition (watch below), met Emdin when he was on a radio show hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson (let the awesomeness of that set in for a minute). The two began discussing why science classrooms weren't connecting with African-American and Latino students and they realized GZA's interest in bringing science into hip-hop (his forthcoming Dark Matter album will be heavily scientific) and Emdin's interest in bringing hip-hop into classrooms. Soon, Rap Genius was on board—the site had been working with GZA to break down his best bars—and the pilot program for Science Genius was launched.

"At the time, we were starting to receive emails from teachers across the U.S. asking how they could use hip-hop and/or Rap Genius in their classrooms to reach their disengaged students," Nicole Otero, the artist relations head at Rap Genius who spearheaded the project for the site, told Wired. "Science Genius was the first concrete step. The haters will always diminish rap as a lesser art form, but if you really listen, you'll see lyricism is how rappers synthesize some bigger idea into a very subtle point."

Using hip-hop to help kids understand science may not seem obvious; it seems more applicable to Dangerous Minds-style English lessons. But, as Otero notes, "hip-hop absolutely lends itself to science flows" and, in addition to providing handy mnemonic devices for remembering science concepts, the challenge of rapping out a scientific principle or topic meant students had to research more to find just the right word for their flows.

"The whole rock part of Earth science is boring to me," a 17-year-old from Validus told WNYC, adding "I started looking up all these rocks and seeing that there were volcanic rocks and it just started making me want to learn about rocks. Like, for no reason."

As part of his winnings Johnson will get a full day in the recording studio with GZA, something that will come in handy since he plans on pursuing music after high school. As for Science Genius, the hope is that it will carry on for even more students in the coming years.

"We absolutely plan on it. We're actually meeting this week to start editing our entire program to be better and more scalable for next year," Otero said. "We want to make the Science Genius initiative into a curriculum that can be taught to teachers/principals/etc. so that the entire idea is scalable."