Sold-out show at the comicon: Nerdcore rap artists carve their own niche. By JONATHAN DREW.
What do geeks and gangstas have in common?
Not much, other than the fact that both have a form of rap dedicated to detailing their exploits.
Nerdcore hip-hop, an underground rap genre in which rappers celebrate Dungeons & Dragons, computer science and Star Wars movies, has been exploding on the Internet. The genre began in the late '90s when people who sat in front of their computers all day began putting rhymes over beats and sharing them with friends.
Now, there are dozens of nerdcore artists and thousands of fans. Though most of the music is downloadable for free off the artists' Web sites, you can even find a couple of them on iTunes. Some have done national tours, drawing hundreds of fans to each stop.
The beats and flows mimic popular rap, but the subject matter is pretty much the opposite to what you'd hear on urban radio. Instead of bragging about one's ability to earn money as a pimp, geek MCs rap about who writes better computer code or who knows more about comic books.
As such, you're not likely to see a nerdcore video on MTV anytime soon. Instead, download this asap podcast for an introduction to the form of music.
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Download the podcast here.
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Further listening: http://www.bedoper.com/nerdcore
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asap reporter Jonathan Drew is based in New York.
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Want to comment? Sound off at soundoffasap@ap.org .
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