I am an unabashed, hardcore fan of Nerdcore Hip-Hop. For the uninitiated, Nerdcore is a movement by underground do-it-yourselfers who happen to be nerds and geeks, seeking to bring storytelling and topical conversation back to hip-hop. You won’t hear raps about guns and hos in these rhymes. Instead you’re more likely to hear about Star Wars, video games, comic books, and the latest technology. Being a fan of such rappers as MC Lars, MC Frontalot, YTCracker, Optimus Rhyme, and many others, I was excited to hear that RAVAGE aka MeccaGodZilla sparked a new personality, Ryu Black, for a single about Chun Li that will be followed by an album in 2009. The entire album will be Street Fighter themed, in honor of the Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li movie coming next year, along with Street Fighter IV. Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, besides having the awesomest title of any game in recent memory, just came out on PSN and Xbox LIVE, as well. Check out the killer love song to Chun Li at THIS LINK HERE and head HERE for more of RAVAGE’s beats.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Nerdcore is a movement by underground do-it-yourselfers who happen to be nerds and geeks, seeking to bring storytelling and topical conversation back to hip-hop
This never left rap, ever.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
“topical” really depends on who and where you are. I appreciate the nerdcore stuff because it’s entertaining, definitely, but it’s no more real than any other subgenre.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Well, this certainly wins the award for most willfully ignorant ‘analysis’ of hip-hop in comic book journalism in 2008.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
“Instead you’re more likely to hear about Star Wars, video games, comic books, and the latest technology.”
This is pretty topical storytelling, cutting to the core of the human condition, showing what life is really like for the people listening to it.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Finally a type of “hip hop” that discusses things that effect my every day life, like Transformers and World Warrior Tournaments!
I was getting sick of hearing about our school systems and Katrina and politics and all that other “ghetto” stuff.
December 5th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Yikes! I touched a nerve here, clearly. I was trying to be a bit tounge-in-cheek, guys. I’m a fan of many versions of hip-hop, and just happen to be a big fan of Nerdcore currently. Sorry my cheekiness didn’t come across very well, but as much as I think the majority of Crunk Rap, for example, is completely worthless to the medium of music, the majority of hip-hop is still getting a lot of playing time on my ipod and my itunes.
so…did anybody listen to the song?
December 5th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
i’ve never heard of nerdcore but i do love me some street fighter so i’ll check it out. i was talking about hip hop and comics a little while back on the CBR forums ( http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?p=7898028 ) cause i was listening to the new Q-Tip album and he dropped a couple comics references. though i’ve never heard of nerdcore before, i have to say that Last Samurai’s “Secret Wars” has to be the most comiccore track of any nerdcore track. that’s an intense song.
December 5th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
okay so i listened to the song and here’s what i think: i like the concept of a love song about Chun-Li, but Ryu’s flow is a bit too hectic for me to really enjoy the track. and the idea of taking the character and putting her into a more “hip hop” setting isn’t doing it for me (for example, when Ryu Black talks about her beating up another SF character in the cafeteria). not a bad song at all but i probably won’t check out the album.
December 5th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
The song’s okay, but Redman’s cut off the HDR soundtrack is better.
My problem is that there wasn’t any cheekiness in the post. It was just a straightforward line about how rap has lost its way with all that talk about hoes and guns, but look out! Nerds are here to save the day by bringing back storytelling and topical conversation. It’s an amazingly ignorant tack to take in both discussing rap and trying to promote someone’s work. It’s the same kind of thinking that has people believing that “underground” rap is a style, “backpack” rap is more pure, and “gangsta” rap is something only ignorant people listen to.
There’s plenty of other ways to put on dude’s music without denigrating an entire genre of music in the process. I’m sure that he, as an artist, grew up on and was influenced by the same music that you’re dissing.
All I’m asking is that you think about what you’re writing before you put pen to paper, as it were.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I love you, David Brothers. You’re like Candyman, except instead of being summoned when someone says your name five times, you appear when someone on a comics blog says something ignorant about hip-hop. I’m going to try it right now:
“I don’t listen to rap music because it is degrading to women.”
December 5th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I didn’t know I had a history. Maybe people should stop doing that and I’ll stop showing up!
Rap as a genre isn’t degrading to women, but I’d have to be a fool to think that a lot of very popular, and unpopular, rappers are not degrading to everything in general.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
David, as I said before, I really didn’t intend to dis rap as a whole. For the record, the artist of many names this post is actually about has touched many genres of rap, and he got what I intended from the above post. Again, sorry for how it came across, and I’ll leave the post as-is for posterity, not as an intention to further mislead people into thinking all rap has degenerated into mindless nonsense (though some certainly has). I’ll be more overtly cheeky in the future, or just be straight forward in talking about Nerdcore, which itself is really a movement and not a genre, per se, but that’s probably another post altogether.
December 6th, 2008 at 4:28 am
Great song. I will definitely pass it along by way of a post to my own blog sometime next week.
Also, as a hardcore hip hop head and life-long otaku (born 1969), I want to mention that I didn’t have a single problem with Siegel’s verbiage.
And, I know some geeks can be pretty fawkin’ sensitive about their interests (Klingon lifestyle rituals, the correct pronunciation of “Tattoo-een”, the actual lifespan of ‘death in comics’), but, damn. Is it that serious?
I mean, really. How a single line suggestin’ that listeners won’t “hear rhymes about guns and hos” in nerdcore could be construed as a “denigrating” dis to an entire genre of music is completely beyond me — and completely beyond logic.
Some folks like “G’s up, hoe’s down.” Some don’t.
No biggie. (Notorious even.)