Nerdcore

Nerdcore hip hop, or geeksta rap, is a subgenre of hip hop music that is performed by nerds or geeks, and is characterized by themes and subject matter considered to be of general interest to nerds. Self-described nerdcore musician MC Frontalot coined the term in 2000 in the song "Nerdcore Hiphop". Frontalot, like most nerdcore artists, self-publishes his work and has released much of it for free online. As a niche genre, nerdcore generally holds to the DIY ethic, and has a strong amateur tradition of self-publishing and self-production. It orginated in Boston.

Of all nerdcore artists, Frontalot and mc chris are probably the most widely known. Very few nerdcore artists are particularly notable, because the only things required to enter the nerdcore community are a microphone, a computer, and a webserver. Virtually no nerdcore albums have ever been released on a major record label, and MP3s, not CDs, are the primary means of distribution.

Though nerdcore rappers rhyme about everything from dextromethorphan use (mc chris, "The Tussin") to politics (Frontalot, "Special Delivery"), there are some perennial favorites in nerdcore subject matter, including Star Wars (Frontalot, "Yellow Lasers"; 2 Skinnee J's, "Mind Trick"; mc chris, "Fett's Vette"), science (MC Hawking, "Entropy"; 2 Skinnee J's, "Pluto"), and computers (Optimus Rhyme, "Reboot"; Monzy, "Drama in the PhD"; MC Plus+, "Computer Science for Life"). Making music about these topics does not make one automatically nerdcore - they are also popular themes in geek rock, filk, and other nerd-centric genres; the combination of hip hop and the subject matter makes them nerdcore. Somewhat less straightforwardly, there are hip hop artists who have recorded compositions which focus on similar topics, but who are not generally considered nerdcore. (An example would be Blackalicious, who are generally agreed to not be nerdcore artists despite science-oriented songs like "Chemical Calisthenics".) Conversely, one does not need to concentrate on those topics to be nerdcore: most of the songs by both of the undisputed leaders of the genre, Frontalot and mc chris, do not focus narrowly on stereotypically nerdy topics. The difference is largely one of self-identification; Blackalicious do not identify as "nerds", while Frontalot and chris both do.

The word "nerdcore" is also occasionally used as an adjective to describe a "hardcore nerd" (that is, someone who publicly takes pride in being nerdy) or anything which is nerdy to an extreme level. It is considered quite complimentary within the community.

The sound

Nerdcore has no unifying musical manifesto, and the sound of nerdcore varies wildly from artist to artist. One common theme, especially in the early days of the genre, is uncleared sampling. MC Frontalot addressed this directly in his 1999 song "Good Old Clyde", a thank you of sorts to Clyde Stubblefield for the "funky drummer" break - which, of course, was sampled to provide the song's beat. Sources for samples in nerdcore range from Vanilla Ice ("Ninja Rap", sampled in mc chris's "Bad(dd) Runner)") to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ("Rondo Alla Turca", in MC Plus+'s "Computer Science for Life"). YTCracker's Nerdrap Entertainment System is an entire album made up primarily of samples from 8-bit Nintendo games. Though some artists have moved away from this - Frontalot, for example, completely remixed several songs to remove uncleared samples before releasing them commercially on his 2005 album Nerdcore Rising - it is still quite common, as most nerdcore tracks are released non-commercially and thus attract little to no attention from the RIAA.

Several DJs have provided beats and done remixes for multiple nerdcore artists, most notably Baddd Spellah, who currently mixes the majority of Frontalot's tracks. Spellah also won mc chris's remix competition in 2004 and received a track in his honor ("Bad(dd) Runner") as a prize.

History of nerdcore

As stated before, the term "nerdcore hip hop" was coined in 2000 by MC Frontalot. However, the genre itself arguably dates back to at least 1998. Even earlier, artists as varied as the Beastie Boys, Kool Keith, Deltron 3030, MC 900 Ft. Jesus, and Daniel Dumile began exploring topics far outside of the traditional hip hop culture, including stereotypically "nerdy" topics like space and science fiction. Though these underground artists were generally outside of geek culture and are not considered nerdcore, they can be said to have set the stage for artists like Frontalot, who has listed several of them as influences. Nerdcore had clear influences from geek culture as well, including geek rockers like They Might Be Giants, parodists like "Weird Al" Yankovic (who released a rap called "It's All About The Pentiums" in 1999 and White and Nerdy in 2006), and others.

In 1998 the 2 Skinnee J's released the album $upermercado, featuring the song "Riot Nrrrd", which, though it predated the term "nerdcore hip hop" by two years, may nevertheless be claimed as the first true nerdcore song to achieve wide release. The title is a pun on the "riot grrrl" underground punk movement, and may have come from Douglas Coupland's influential 1995 novel Microserfs. "Riot Nrrrd" appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Never Been Kissed a year later. However, it was only in the 21st century that nerdcore really came into its own, led by Frontalot and mc chris. The new genre was popular within the nerd community from the outset. mc chris, an Adult Swim employee at the time and a voice actor on the cartoon Sealab 2021, performed his seminal "Fett's Vette" on a 2001 episode of the show, giving the nerdcore sound a nationwide audience. New artists began springing up and gaining prominence, though only a few garnered any real following.

By 2005, the new subgenre of geeksta rap (named for gangsta rap) had definitively emerged, largely independently of more traditional nerdcore. The difference was in both lyrics and attitude; the geeksta artists (mostly computer scientists) focused on proclaiming their prowess with computers and other technical abilities. This braggadocio led to the first nerdcore feud, between MC Plus+ and Monzy.

Nerdcore artist MC Lars achieved some mainstream success with "Download This Song" in 2006, especially in Australia. The single received sustained radio play and the video was regularly featured on pay-television channels. It spent eight weeks on the ARIA charts, peaking at #29.

Notable nerdcore artists

There is no canonical definition of nerdcore - nor, arguably, of hip hop. The most general definition of a nerdcore artist would be "a rapper who is also a nerd". However, not everyone accepts this. Some limit the genre to artists who openly proclaim themselves as "nerdcore", which automatically precludes any artists who stopped recording before Frontalot coined the term in 2000. Others consider bands to be nerdcore if they are called nerdcore by other nerdcore artists. Many automatically exclude artists who have been released on a major label and/or had some level of commercial success, while others consider this irrelevant. Further, "notability" is somewhat hard to define in a nerdcore context, due to two facts: almost all nerdcore is self-produced and self-distributed, and the genre will probably never break into the non-nerdy mainstream. Any list is therefore inherently incomplete and subjective. That said, any list of major players (past and present) in the nerdcore scene would include most if not all of the following:

• 2 Skinnee J's
• Commodore 64
• Grand Buffet
• Hot Karl
• Jesse Dangerously
• mc chris
• MC Frontalot
• MC Hawking
• MC Lars
• MC Plus+
• Monzy
• Optimus Rhyme
• Shael Riley
• YTCracker

There are many more less known nerdcore artists; see the external links, below.

Related artists and songs

Although the works of the following notable artists are not generally considered nerdcore, and the artists may not consider themselves to be a part of the nerd culture, they do feature themes typical of the genre:

• The Boombaklot Killa
• Deltron 3030
• Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
• Dream Warriors, "Twelve Sided Dice" (1991)
• Former Fat Boys
• The Great Luke Ski
• KOMPRESSOR collaborated with MC Frontalot on "Rappers We Crush" (2001)
• The Lonely Island, "Lazy Sunday" (2005)
• MC 900 Ft. Jesus
• MC Paul Barman
• "Weird Al" Yankovic, "It's All About the Pentiums" (1999), "White & Nerdy" (2006)
• KJ-52, while not generally considered nerdcore has written songs about being a nerd, must notably "Revenge of the Nerds" (feat. Pigeon John) from Collaborations.
• Jumpsteady,"dungeon master"
• Flashlight Brown, "Ready to Roll", "Looking Away"
• HORSE the Band, "Cutsman", "Birdo", the term Nintendocore was coined for this band becuase of the nintendo-midi themed synth within their songs.

Media coverage

• Nerdcore Rising A documentary following MC Frontalot on his first US tour. Currently in production
• Scott, Toby. "Beware geeks bearing riffs." The Guardian June 17, 2002.
• Andrews, Robert. "Rap Marketing Comes to Nerdcore." Wired June 23, 2005.
• The Brian Lehrer Show. "(Not So) Hip-Hop." WNYC, New York. August 11, 2005. An audio interview with MC Frontalot (MP3 format)
• Colgan, Jim. "Nerd Hip-Hop, Flowing Like Han Solo" NPR November 7, 2005.
• Reed, Bryan. "Nerdcore Hip-Hop" The Daily Tarheel December 8, 2005.
• Clendenin, Mike. "Geeksta Rappers Rhyme Tech Talk" EE Times February 13, 2006.
• "Nerdcore Gangsta Hip-Hop" Cool.com.au February 27, 2006.
• Nerdcore For Life A documentary film that profiles the world of Nerdcore Hip-Hop.
• solipsistic NATION No.4: Nerdcore Podcast. Interviews and music from artists (MC Frontalot, Ultraklystron, High-C, YTCracker, funky49 Ham-STAR and Beefy) from the emerging genre of Nerdcore.
• Thomasson, Roger. "Me So Nerdy" Wired September, 2006.
• Doctorow, Cory. [1] "Boing Boing Article" December, 2006.

External links

• List of all known nerdcore artists
• NerdcoreHipHop.org
• Rhyme Torrents - The Nerdcore Hip-Hop Compilation CD Project
• piTunez music portal
• piTunez nerdcore music blog

See also

• Geek rock
• Emo rap