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[miko2]

Today's Song: What We Need More of Is Science by MC Hawking

Having listened to only 2 or 3 songs by this artist, I can already tell that I agree with some of the reviewers of his cd who called it a one-joke idea that wears old fast. The idea here is that Stephen Hawking is a hip Nerdcore rap artist who boasts and swears in his computerized voice. I have to admit that I've grown fond of this one song, but that said I don't need to hear anything more. This contains all of the humor the entire idea can hold for me. Listening to, for example, a song about how Stephen Hawking is "a f'ing quake master" that can frag all comers just doesn't add anything to the overall joke. This one song is all I need.

Apparently the person behind MC Hawking is one of the few Nerdcore artists who is at least half African-American.

MC Hawking -- What We Need More of Is Science

Things that I've learned in my week and a half of exploring Nerdcore hip hop:

1. Nerdcore is like filk -- there are tons of nerdcore rappers, and most of them suck.¹

2. Often Nerd Rock or Nerd Rap means basing a song on 8-bit Atari or Nintendo game-style music. It amazes me that anyone likes this stuff.

3. MC Frontalot is the funniest and one of the best of the bunch, but ytcracker is the undisputed king of Nerdcore² and he's pretty good too.

4. mc chris is a talented rapper with a kid's voice. He's also a self-centered jerk.³

5. For some people even geek rap means talking as filthy as possible and degrading women. It gets old and demonstrates your complete lack of creativity.

6. I need to see the movie Nerdcore Rising.

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1. jeffreycornish would probably object to this comment about filk. But skyoxford would agree with me.

2. Undisputed because even Frontalot admits it.

3. Seriously. He simultaneously claims to be the originator of the genre while claiming to have nothing to do with it. He whines that all other Nerdcore rappers A) suck and B) are just imitating him. He jumps at any chance to get press as a leading member of the genre -- then complains that he's not the representative of Nerdcore and that the press only wants to talk about Nerdcore and not about him. He does, however, have a point -- when you embrace a label like "geek" or "nerd" you potentially limit yourself -- and a lot of Nerdcore rap really does seem to revolve around defining yourself as an ur-geek. In some ways I think his problem with the label is similar to working on a fanzine like Tales of the Tai-Pan but not wanting to be labelled "furry".