The Dueling Nerdcore Documentaries

Colin Reuter writes "There are not one but two feature-length documentary films in the works about the burgeoning nerdcore hip-hop scene. Nerdcore Rising from indie company Vaguely Qualified Productions in NY focuses on the founder of the "movement," MC Frontalot, and features MC Hawking, mc chris, Weird Al Yankovic, Brian Posehn, Daily Show personnel, and dozens of aspiring nerdcore rappers from around the country. The competing movie, Nerdcore For Life from Chicago's Crapbot Productions covers many of the same personalities, getting the backstory on more than twenty young nerd rappers including ytcracker, MC++, and Lords of the Rhymes. With two movies duking it out, the print edition of Wired profiling the rappers, and the Associated Press getting onboard, is nerdcore going to turn into a legitimate subgenre? Or will this always be our dirty little secret?"

Is nerdcore going to become a legitimate subgenre?

No, and yes.

Seriously, ANYTHING can be a "subgenre" of something, and you'll always be able to find someone or group out there who likes anything. The answer is, it's already a "subgenre".

If the question is, "Will nerdcore ever be popular beyond my really small group of friends and I who never get laid?" then the answer is, "No."

Re:Is nerdcore going to become a legitimate subgen

If the question is, "Will nerdcore ever be popular beyond my really small group of friends and I who never get laid?" then the answer is, "No."

I don't know about that. The article mentions Weird Al Yankovich, who was nerdcore before there was name for it. He's made himself quite a living doing what he does and has gotten a whole lot of airplay. Will all nerdcore go as mainstream as Weird Al? No, but neither did all gangsta rap or all goth rock. But some of it snuck through, and I expect nerdcore will continue to grow in popularity. Do you know how many people I've heard with a fhqwgaads ringtone?

Re:Is nerdcore going to become a legitimate subgen

I'm also quite annoyed by people more into geek or nerd 'culture' than the intellectual pursuits which usually end up earning the honorable title of geek or nerd. People just into the look, sound, dress, or other surface effect just aren't.

HOLY LINKS, BATMAN!

:D

The Revolution

Rise up my fellow nerds for this is the day we always waited for, when we will be hailed as the new cool!

Seriously though, as the tech industry companies already depend on us, why not get a little fun in the music industry.

Competing?

Why do these movies 'dueling' and 'competing'? Sounds like they're different takes on the same subject. Can't we watch both?

The only solution...

... is to have a VJ battle of the two documentaries and release the resulting mash-up.

You may think it's cool

Pimp Daddy Welfare still rocks over any nerd core.

Anyone else remember...

the ON [Original Nerd (C)] Netmaster 10baseT [packetstormsecurity.org]?

Idiots

It only take a room full of idiots and a music exec. I suspect that we already have enough idiots and now all we need to do is wait for a music exec before we're stuck with another genre of crappy music. All hail the music industry for taking so many small time fads and turning them into massive trends for the masses. /optimism off

It's time

Someone shoot me.

They're feature length, so?

These sound interesting, but I have to wonder, if if they're released, where in the world will they be viewable? I mean, it's great that these are getting made, but pretty useless IMHO if the only place to see them is at some film festival that is inaccessible to the everyday person.

MC Chris

The true hero of sealab!
Oh and...
My backpack's got jets
Cause I'm Boba the Fett

Shudder

...and features MC Hawking, mc chris, Weird Al Yankovic, Brian Posehn, Daily Show personnel, and dozens of aspiring nerdcore rappers from around the country.

Weird Al is NOT an aspiring "nerdcode" rapper, and PLEASE for the love of God don't lump the proven genius that is Weird Al with these other obscure whatever-the-hell-they-ares.

Re:Shudder

you're right. he's an ESTABLISHED nerdcore rapper. and if you don't think that "white and nerdy" or "all about the pentiums" do not qualify as nerdcore, then wtf does?

A "nerdcore" rapper does music (to use the term loosely) in the style of rap -- that's their particular style. Weird Al does parody of music using the style of the original music. That he happens to do parodies of some rap songs does not making him an "aspiring" nerdcore rapper.

Re:Shudder

Well, if having three or four good "nerdcore" songs makes Weird Al a "nerdcore artist", then he's also a gangsta rapper and a pop musician and swing singer (or whatever you'd call that) and folk singer and apolka singer and a hip-hop artist and a Grunge artist and... you get the point.

I question the utility of labeling him that way. "Parodist" covers it best.

On his own throne, the boss like King Koopa

MF Doom [wikipedia.org] should be in this list. He's more "real" rap I suppose because he's got more street cred and Melanin than some of those listed, but he wears a damn Dr. Doom mask and has a whole supervillain persona.

Plus he's got Stan Lee samples on his albums. How dorky is that?

Also, have the older "rap is crap" crowd taken the day off because usually these stories have whole threads about how music died in the 60's?

Optimus Rhyme

He stole his name from Petey Pablo. Optimus Rhyme was one of Petey's earlier monikers.

Bad start for a rapper , where originality is everything.

On the other hand, GREAT FUCKING NAME !

I learned all of this from TV, behind the music or some documercial.

Founder?!??

What about MC Paul Barman, Infesticons (and their alter egos the Majesticons), even El-P and Company Flow have been delving in these realms for years. Check them out if you never heard of them, you may like them even if you are not a fan of hip-hop.

I don't give a shit...

"...is nerdcore going to turn into a legitimate subgenre? Or will this always be our dirty little secret?"

As long as these dudes start buying their beats from me, I could care less if it becomes "legit" or not.

If you suspected you might be a geek...

If you are reading about Nerdcore Documentaries on Slashdot, then suspect no longer, you rival all of your friends in the world of geekdom.

Alas, I honestly feel the need to go out and do something 'cool' now that doesn't involve computers, WoW, etc.

The nerdcore genre is going to fizzle...

...cause my geekcore genre is the mad shizizzle. My geekcore rhymes are fresh and fly, 'cause they're written by a Lisp-powered strong AI. And my DJ skills are so off the hook, they be askin' me to write the O'Reilly book. Y'all test my songs while they're still in beta, and don't be no RPG playa hata. If all y'all hear me, wave your hands and say: G to tha E to tha E to tha K.

What defines a subgenre?

Couldn't you say that nerdcore is the burgeoning musical outlet for a subculture that already exists? Or in specifically musical terms... if a movement of music doesn't neatly fit into any classications of genres that exist already, especially if it takes elements of genres that exist already, would that define a new (sub or no) genre of music? This is a tendency that's especially prevalent within electronica. Which comes first? The genre or the subculture?

i dunno...

i don't really know what to think about all this. i mean White and Nerdy hit a little close to home. Now they're making documentaries? what part of recluse don't they understand? If i wanted to be cool, i'd have learned to play guitar instead of asm.

MC Lars?

While not strictly Nerdcore, I'd say MC Lars [wikipedia.org] should be included. He's more of a literature geek, but his stuff is definitely White & Nerdy rap. He bills his work as "post-punk laptop rap". A few of his songs:

- Download This Song [youtube.com]
- iGeneration
- Space Game
- If I Had a Time Machine
- Mr. Raven (based on Poe's "The Raven")
- Internet Relationships
- Ahab
- Signing Emo

Give him a try. His stuff is fun.

I.V.

Hmmm

What about WTCracker? I love all his songs and I think he outdoes all those guys, plus he was caught hacking law enforcement websites in Colorado when he was a kid so he is a legit nerd.

MC Coffee Mug puts them all to shame

http://www.mccoffeemug.com/ [mccoffeemug.com]

East Coast v. West Coast

So will there be a beef between linux rappers and Windows rappers?

If MC Ubuntu gets shot I know it was Windows 2000 PAC that did it.

Are there lyrics licensed under GPL?

Windows 2000 PAC

I spit mad rhymes without taking a breath,
Any sucka MC's that step to me will see my blue screen of death!

It's necessary that my style is proprietary,
All you bitches running MAC are straight up wack.

MC Ubuntu

Of course my flow is open source.
I know you like it so,
Download and burn my ISO

I aint no sucka MC
you can download my shits for free

Not free as in beer,
You dumb ass Ballmer queer

Futuristic Sex Robotz

A while back, some people on the somethingawful forums created the futuristic sex robots [futuristicsexrobotz.com] and released an album under the creative commons. Their songs rap about WOW, crusing in a DeLorean, and the way things were back in the day; their most popular track is "Fuck the MPAA." They also sound a heck of a lot better than some of the artists listed above.

Nerdcore is pretty good

I first got started on nerdcore with MC Chris. I didn't even know it as nerdcore then. Some time later I discovered there were more artists doing this kind of music. Forget how I heard of them, probably IRC. Started off with the Rhymetorrent site. Its stuff I can relate to and the beats are actually good. Its nice to see that its growing. I look forward to watching the 2 films. Best of all most of the nerdcore artists give their music away for free. If you haven heard of them, check out Futuristic Sex Robots. They're one of my favorites.

I'd rather listen to my garbage disposal

I've never witnessed such a display of an utter lack of creative musical prowess! Does anybody else feel embarrassed to be white?

Please, no

When I was picking the music to use for a crap geekcast [locnetwork.com] I was am doing I was asked "Don't you want to use nerd core?" I gave the guy a dirty look even though I subscribe to a Nerdcore Podcast [podshow.com].
It is a good novelty but I just can't take it seriously. I have seen serious and funny nerdcore but I haven't seen any nerdcore that hits like Nirvana, NWA, Artie Shaw or even Neil Diamond. Maybe one day but not yet.

Nerd, indeed

Nerd enough to read "Brian Posehn" as "Brian Posleen."

But not nerd enough to know what the hell "nerd core" is. Weird Al is nerd core? MC Hawking is more than a gag, it's representative of a musical style?

I must be getting old. /me turns on Exile On Coldharbour Lane

Rule one of nerdcore rap:

Have links to .mp3s of your songs.
Rule two of nerdcore rap:
Be sure the fucking links work.

a question wrapped inside an enigma

is nerdcore going to turn into a legitimate subgenre?

This question has lot stumped many star wars historians. For it's a question wrapped inside an enigma. To wit:

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Fett's-Vett e-lyrics-MC-Chris/16FF523D3B5C945548256E8400077790 [sing365.com]

MC Frontalot's Website is currently HURTING

Urgh. I'm a frequenter of and part-time programmer for MC Frontalot's website (I've got nothing on the hosting or forums, only some minor PHP hoo-hah here and there). Of all the weeks for his site to glitch up, it chose THIS WEEK, right when it's getting hit with Slashdot to glitch. Argh!

Nerd!

Oh wait, I mean... Word!

Nuff respect for...

...my homie Luke Ski [lukeski.com].

eyedea

I dont know if eyedea qualifies as nerdcore, and he may take offence to the term, but anyone interested in the genre should take a look at Eyedea. 'First Born' which is I beleive officially released by Eyedea, and 'The Many Face of Oliver Hart' which is released under a pseudonym. Both of these albums lean heavily toward philosophy & poetry as opposed to any traditional hip-hop themes. Unfortunately imo since Eyedea won the MTV blaze battle in 2001(I think it was 2001) he went a bit more battle-rap in his style(i.e. freestyle about why my crew's so much better at hip-hop than yours not gansta rap which is i'm gonna put a cap in yo ***) which I feel is a big step down from his 1st 2 albums.

Imo Eyedea is far better than anything else I've seen discussed as nerdcore, managing to combine intelligent lyrics with actual significant ability for both pre-written and freestyle hip-hop.

OCremix instead

http://www.ocremix.org/ [ocremix.org] Having downloaded torrents of NerdCore and OCRemix torrents I can honestly say I prefer OCremix stuff better. Sure there is little 'singing' with it but the majority is a lot less offensive. I prefer my music suitable for all ages.

monzy

My favorite. Kill -9

No more CPU time... raise the interrupt level baby

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Fow7iUaKrq4&mode=relate d&search= [youtube.com]

Two points

1) Isn't success in Nerdcore self-defeating? Isn't the whole point that they're just a bunch of geeks with Acid and a mic? If one got signed by a major label would he really be nerdcore anymore? 2) While there are talented rappers in the mix, most of this stuff is terrible. Absolutely, unbeleivably horrible. And the ones that are good are usually only good because they're funny. How can that be considered legitimate?

Absolutely offtopic, but...

Will slashdot please get rid of the fucking McDonalds adverts at the top of the page, they make me feel physically sick, and no I am not joking, it's Monday morning here.

Re:Stuff That Matters

like what? Wii vs. PS3? Linux better than Microsoft? Microsoft bashing? book reviews on programming subject we have seen 100s of times? more crap about Stallman? your right and net neutrality or some other "web [VIRTUAL] atrocity" etc... etc...

None of it really matters, it's all just interesting to read. Not all of it, but there is something for all nerds here. Also, If I had mod points and this was not an AC post (as I just realized as I get to this point in my response), I would mod down.

Re:Dude

Cram it, summary! Cram it wherever your species traditionally crams things!

Sorry.

Re:Rugged, easy-to-clean plastic laminates

children under 7 must be accompanied by an adult
each one is able to support more than 14 tons

Wow, they must be on steroids or something...

Re:MC++??

Of course - a smart crowd with large vocabularies could never be interested in a form of expression which relies heavily on the quality of the lyrics, rhymes, and meter. That's also why smart people generally avoid such primitive forms of non-art as poetry.

Re:Mod Parent Down.

Agreed. This is a troll.

Re:MC++??

I am not a troll.. (drool, dribble) I am a human being!