Popular acceptance of modern nerd culture has been cleverly reflected in Hip Hop over the past couple of years. Classic rap album cover reinterpretations with Marvel Superheroes or watching one’s favorite trap star play video games weren’t normal occurrences. Thanks to the advent of online music downloading culture springing up in the early 2000s thanks to Napster and various peer-to-peer services, the early democratization of musical subgenres affected Hip Hop in a very unusual way. This included the very niche rise of Nerdcore. One innovator of the moment was Chicago native MC Chris who began his career under the umbrella of Adult Swim before becoming one of the most notable emcees of the Hip Hop subgenre.
Sure, the masses may not have much of a clue of the quirky rapper with a love for Star Wars, Dungeons & Dragons and 80’s pop culture. However, for the past 15 years, MC Chris has released several well-received albums including from his debut Life’s A Bitch & I’m Her Pimp and MC Chris Is Dead (humorously named after De La Soul’s highly regarded sophomore follow-up to 3 Feet High and Rising) to having a nice yearly tour run. Helps that he spent early parts of his career with Adult Swim on once network mainstays Sealab 2021 and Aqua Teen Hunger Forces. During our sit-down at popular Hollywood comicbook store Meltdown comics, the interview gets interrupted a few times as random fans stop and ask for autographs. From an outsider’s perspective, MC Chris may be one of Hip Hop’s best kept secrets. This week, he’s kicked off a 42 date in Fresno, California alongside comedian Nathan Anderson and ending in Anchorage, Arkansas April 23.
Getting time with the Nerdcore god, MC Chris discusses his secret success being cool, upcoming tour and the sub-genre hasn’t crossed over.
“Being A Secret Has Always Been A Cool Thing”
Photo By: Ural Garrett
AD LOADING...
HipHopDX: You have a 40-plus date tour coming up right?
MC Chris: I don’t know. I just keep seeing dates added to it so I don’t know what the official number is at the moment.
DX: Nearly 15 years in the game man and you’re still selling out shows under the mainstream radar of Hip Hop.
MC Chris: The way I look at it is that I love rap and I grew up on it. It kind of saved me during my adolescence. Like it was something that made me so happy and all I really want to do now is do right by it. I really want to write the best songs and give it my best because of what it gave me. I always think of it just as rap and not a specific kind of rap. I always think of myself as a rapper. I know I get called lots of different things, but I think of myself as just a rapper because it’s really important to me. I’ve been doing this for a while and had a couple of things go above some things above the radar at times. Remember the Green Day album Dookie? Well, I remember getting to it about a year late, but it felt like it was something for me. I remember being late to Green Day. I always liked having that secret thing. If you look at Hawkeye, like I have Hawkeye tattoos on both my wrists from being a kid and I thought that character was always my secret thing. Being a secret has always been a cool thing to me. Now you see Hawkeye in the movies and stuff. Things that you loved as a kid, once it’s not a secret anymore, gets fucked with and everyone messes with it. It’s not special, private and personal any more. Being a secret to me is a pretty great thing. If no one knows about me right now, I’m in the sweet spot. I would love to have more money. I don’t think I’d want fame because it would make life kind of difficult or more difficult to live and my ego has had enough of a fill for a lifetime. I don’t think I need to find more for the beast that needs to be fed. I’m at a really nice place to be and I have just enough fans to stay alive. I would even say just enough, I have a nice crowd everywhere I go in the country. They’re almost like friends, people I can rely on everywhere in the world which is weird. It feels more like Fight Club. It’s just a network of people around the world.
AD LOADING...
DX: You’re one of the first artists I specifically found through the Internet around the turn of the millennium.
MC Chris: That’s interesting. My website went live around the time that Adult Swim premiered. I think there were some people that fell into that net.
DX: The first project that I heard from you was Life’s A Bitch & I’m Her Pimp.
MC Chris: That’s it. That was the very first album. We put that out in 2001 so it’ll be around 14 or 15-years old. I had “Fett’s Vett” recorded when I went into my interview for Sea Lab. It was part of me showing them what I could do. I was like, “And I also make this music.” They were like, “that’s pretty good.” They hired me and became an animator for a while.
AD LOADING...
DX: It’s interesting looking back at that now considering how entrenched Adult Swim has become with Hip Hop culture currently. Some could say the success you had was the first.
MC Chris: Thank you! This is a very gratifying interview. My character on Aqua Team Hunger Force MC Pee Pants, them playing “Fett’s Vett” and turning Hesh into a rapper as time went on. All that stuff was the first stuff, but I feel like Space Ghost Coast To Coast was the true forbearer of Adult Swim in terms of the Hip Hop aesthetic. They had a lot of rappers guest star. The guys at Williams Street loves rap. Jason Demarco who handle Tsunami and music for Adult Swim is a really huge fan of rap and helped introduce El-P and Killer Mike for Run The Jewels. The connection Adult Swim has with Hip Hop is really close. I don’t know if I was the very first person, but I definitely maybe one of the first people to tour and have a rap career in conjunction with them. I did a lot of things first and haven’t received any credit for it so thank you very much.
MC Chris Explains How Public Enemy Opened His Eyes To Civil Rights Struggles Of Minorities
Photo By: Ural GarrettAD LOADING...
DX: When was the moment you got into Hip Hop?
MC Chris: I grew up now listening to Hip Hop. I would hear Beastie Boys and Run DMC coming from my neighbor’s backyard. I thought they were playing heavy metal music at the time or dirty music I shouldn’t have been listening to. I think my brother bought in 3 Feet High And Rising and a mix that someone had given him. That’s how Hip Hop found its way into our house. But, I think we had Public Enemy in the household first. Because their earlier stuff was produced with Rick Rubin and it had a rock sound to it. That made it very accessible to young white people. I really liked Public Enemy because one thing, they were funny and two, Chuck D was informative. I was finding stuff out that I didn’t know about and there was no way for me to find this stuff out without hearing him. I realized things were unfair, projects existed and other real simple stuff. I think the whole reason why white people are in the suburbs is to be kept in the dark about what life is like. Public Enemy let me know that these things existed. I got exposed to things like civil rights because that stuff wasn’t emphasized. And there weren’t enough black people in the community to make it a priority of any kind. They just wanted to have a perfect situation in their minds. I was always happy to go to the city and listen to rap. I should say that I had a weird obsession with black people. I liked Arnold from Diff’rent Strokes. Like he was my soul mate when I was growing up. Anytime he was a kid on an ABC Saturday movie, he’d be really smart and different characters from different sitcoms would be in one movie. I loved that shit. I was a fan of Mr. T was so big to me. In fact, one time, Mr. T and Arnold were in an episode with each other and I’m surprised I didn’t have a stroke. They were my heroes. A few sports figures as well like Walter Payton of the 1985 Bears. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. They all seemed like superheroes to me.
DX: When was the point where you felt like you could actually become a rapper and have a successful career?
MC Chris: When I transferred from the Art Institute Of Chicago to New York University, I went from like a small city to like a really big city. Going to that really big city just fucked me up. I was so bummed out and so depressed, but I always listened to Hip Hop. I always put songs in my mixes. The music that I told you about that I loved earlier blossomed into me knowing every lyric of anyone related to Native Tongues. That meant memorizing every A Tribe Called Quest lyric. I loved The Pharcyde and was a huge fan of Dream Warriors. The first Black Sheep album was the best thing in the world to me. I memorized all of it by driving a lot. When I come to New York, I become friends with punk rock kids that recorded themselves playing music. The next semester, I was in a hotel separated from the punk rock kids, but I still hung out with them. They would jam and I would rap to it. I just became known as the guy that rapped. I would rap the beginning of a Black Sheep song or Public Enemy song. I was just covering stuff. Then I would do it at parties and later everyone started calling me MC Chris. I was working as an usher in a movie theater sweeping up popcorn and stuff and I’d come home to my voice message machine asking me to come over and rap on top of it. They would get tired of making punk rock songs which has a very repetitive formula and they’d have to stop doing that genre to make a country song or rap song. They’d say they had a beat, I’d buy a Colt 45, walk over from my place in Soho to their place in Greenwich Village and start rapping. Then I would have a recording of myself and I’d listen to that thing hundreds of times. I just became obsessed with myself. I was like I have to make more. Then I had all these ideas of sampling classic rock, making fun of rap tropes, make nerdy references about Star Wars. I had these specific ideas of what I wanted to be, but I didn’t think anyone would listen to it.
AD LOADING...
DX: How did you become comfortable in your style in terms of themes you would cover?
MC Chris: There was never a moment when I didn’t feel that way. I felt that Chuck D taught me something important and that there were Hip Hop commandments that were inherent in the music. Representing to me meant not pretending to be black or from a black neighborhood. Instead, talk about what you know. Hip Hop isn’t one story, but the act of storytelling. I just told my story. I can’t tell anyone else’s story but my own. My story involves the Millennium Falcon, Pac Man and D&D. If you listen to my music specifically it’s more so about 80’s and pop culture than it is about nerdy things, but being MC Chris and being called a Nerdcore rapper has only made me work with all these other Nerdcore rappers and have all these nerdy fans who have taught me so much about being a nerd. I don’t think people in high school would say I’m a nerd, but I was an artsy guy. I was into art, musicals, I could draw and chased after girls. I did read comics and play video games, but I wasn’t what you see now when you think of nerds.
MC Chris Explains Why Nerdcore Never Found Mainstream Hip Hop Acceptance
DX: Even the cultural perception of what being a nerd is has changed in a contemporary sense. It’s almost pop culture now.
AD LOADING...
MC Chris: It’s changed and evolved. Well, it’s been a part of pop culture sense after the success of the Lord of the Rings and Spider-Man films. That’s when jocks started bringing their dates to a nerdy thing and it was like mass appeal. When that happened, nerds were handed the keys to the city. Life became about them. Comic-Con became so important. Comic book and gaming conventions became important. Gaming becomes a trillion dollar industry. Everything is geared toward nerds.
DX: With that said, why didn’t Nerdcore cross over into mainstream?
MC Chris: I think the fact that it’s called Nerdcore means it’s niche and therefore, dismissed as amateurish. There are a lot of talented artists within the subgenre. I, of course, am the most talented. Just kidding. But, I think that being overlooked helps you be a secret and helps have artistic integrity. We haven’t sold out. I would love to sell out though, sign to a label and have somebody run my business so I can focus on making more music and art that people want to see.
DX: For something so under-the-radar, the scene is fairly large.
AD LOADING...
MC Chris: It’s fairly large and the companies that sell to nerds should enlist nerdy rappers because there’s a great synergy. I definitely know that I enjoy playing conventions and everyone is so receptive. I just love being there because I love conventions. As to why it’s underground and why it hasn’t moved over, it could also be because that song hasn’t happened yet. I’ve had my stuff played on the radio, but there hasn’t been that one crossover hit that would introduce everyone to this huge thing. If someone was into it, they would have so much work to do because there’s so much content.
DX: Would the lack of crossover appeal have to do with Hip Hop’s aggressive nature that favors alpha-male antics?
MC Chris: That’s my character I’m in because I needed that Hip Hop ego to get me through a time of low ego and depression. I would say how I was so great. There were times in my life where Hip Hop had me like, “I’m getting laid all the time” when in reality I hadn’t been laid in who knows how long. It makes you feel better and builds you up. I was always using that and still do. I always need it. There were groups who were about being as realistic as possible and those Hip Hop cliches were something that I loved and kept doing even if people misinterpreted me or don’t know that it’s satire. I think it’s funny and, therefore, entertaining. Laughing is fun.
DX: Has there been any interesting fan-moments over the years?
AD LOADING...
MC Chris: I’m recording a Disney pilot because one of my fans is an executive producer. I’ve been doing this for so long that fans have grown-up and now have positions of power. They’re giving me gigs. It’s awesome. I made a song with Talib Kweli for his Idle Worship album Habits of the Heart. We were working out of the same studio and some of the people there played him some of my stuff that I was recording for MC Chris Is Dead. He’s always been super nice to me. I love having him on my Facebook feed because he’s always teaching me about everyday life, new movements and hypocrisy. I’ve even had a chance to work with Childish Gambino on his Poindexter project. There are people I dream about working with. More so producers than rappers because I’ve never worked with a real legendary Hip Hop producer before. As just a fan, it’ll be cool to work with one just to be around someone who did something that I liked.
DX: You have a new album in the works right?
MC Chris: Yeah I’ve been working on an album called Foes All Fall in between washing dishes and changing diapers. It’s about the Batman villains and that can come out anytime second. The next full length will be something that I’m not going to talk about until I release it. I’ll let everyone know that the album is coming out. That won’t happen until fall. I should be able to get Foes All Fall and a kids album I’m doing out before the full length comes out.
MC Chris: How has fatherhood changed you and your approach to art?
AD LOADING...
DX: I thought having a kid would mean me making songs all the time, but you’re really so exhausted and tired that you can barely think. You’re singing “Do-Re-Mi” and “Itsy, Bitsy, Spider” so much just to remain conscious. You barely know what’s going on. I don’t know how it’s changed me. I have made one song since he was born and I thought it was a really good song. It’s called “Fan Awakens” and it’s available on our Bandcamp. It makes you want to have this job. Sometimes I don’t really want to do this. Sometimes, I rather be back doing cartoon work or something in film. Sometimes I’m ecstatic and feel blessed and lucky to be here.
