"the nerdcore could rise up, it could get elevated

oh and wouldn't all of those tough rappers hate it

if the nerdcore rose up and got elevated?

we consider the possibleness of this not overstated."

- MC Frontalot, from the song "Nerdcore Rising"

I find it humorous to consider that MC Frontalot may not have been able to foresee how prescient he was about the film that focuses on his first US tour when he wrote those lyrics. A packed house of enthusiastic fans at the Alamo South Lamar greeted the nerdcore rapper and director Nagin Farsad for the SXSW Premiere of the documentary Nerdcore Rising. The applause and laughter that came from the audience during and after the film showed that the viewers' expectations for the film were well met.

The nerdcore phenomenon (rappers singing about dorkier fare than most hip-hop artists) is something that I thought existed strictly within the video Weird Al did for "White and Nerdy." Seeing the film, I was surprised to find that the genre is bigger than I knew, with a fan base to match. Seeing the turnout Frontalot received at PAX (the Penny Arcade Expo, a gaming conference spawned from the popular webcomic Penny Arcade), I realized that this is something more than what some might dismiss as a novelty act. Frontalot is giving musical voice to a previously unrepresented body, and Farsad captures the enthusiasm behind that movement playfully in a fun documentary.

The day after the premiere, I had a chance to sit down with Frontalot and Farsad and talk a bit about the evolution of nerdcore.

Enrique Gomez: Is it a testament to my being entranced by nerdcore that I want Harmonix to add the bass guitar that Blak Lotus (Frontalot's bassist) plays as downloadable content for Rock Band so that I can play it on my Xbox 360

EG: That's the one! The 5.25" disc had me in stitches the first time I saw it.

MCF: Yeah, that's a testament all right. I think you could probably lobby them.

EG: I think it's a natural marketing tool for them.

MCF: There are fans of the band over at Harmonix, so maybe they can heed your call.

EG: One would hope. Did you originally intend on this first tour for Nagin to come along and document it? How did this all come about?

Negin Farsad: We have a mutual friend that turned me on to MC Frontalot. I ended up going to a show of his and meeting his fans. And honestly, the show was very good. Right?

MCF: Aw shucks.

NF: I mean they're a really great band, and the rapping is awesome and funny and engaging. But that's not really what clinched the deal for me. What really did it was meeting his fans. These people are super into Star Wars, they're super into table-top gaming. Whatever nerdy phenomenon, they're into it. And they're really super devoted. It felt like it was an emerging movement. So meeting the fans is what sealed the deal.

EG: That first tour, there's a point early on in the movie when you, Frontalot, talk about how this is going to either be able to set you up to do this full-time or it's just always going to be a hobby. Did you expect this to blow up the way it did? Once that tour is over, you're done with that last show at PAX, how did you feel?

MCF: (shrugging) Well, I've always been very good at managing my own expectations, I always keep a damper on those so as not having to wrestle with disappointment too often. So no, I was not all expecting it to continue to get bigger, but I certainly was hoping that it would. I've been extremely happy that the trajectory has continued upwards so far. I think the movie getting a good response at SXSW is going to keep adding to that. I figured out that it really did make sense to keep doing it full-time and to get rid of my old freelancing design clients. I guess the turning point was when I began introducing myself to people as a professional rapper at cocktail parties. (Nagin and I both laugh) I do remember the feeling of that transition, it was fantastic. I also felt a little bad for Brandon, my bass player.

NF: Why?

MCF: Because, he had spent the last ten years trying to become an indie rock star. All he ever wanted was to not have to do anything except sit around in his room writing songs. And then I with practically no music background, busted it out. But luckily he is willing to be in my band so we all get to enjoy having crowds.

EG: Well, you say no musical background, but after the movie this morning one of the first things I did was go to your website, downloaded a couple of the MP3s. And one of the things I was most appreciative of was that you have the lyrics up there to read with the songs. I'm sorry, your writing is (Frontalot starts laughing, looking down at his messenger bag he's carrying) pardon my French, f***ing brilliant.

MCF: Aw, thanks. (Frontalot is looking a bit embarrassed at my gushing praise. Negin is beaming as brightly as she was at the premiere).

EG: "Indier Than Thou" is fantastic. You talk in the movie about how when you were a kid, 14, listening to hip-hop with friends and filling in the gaps in the song with your own lyrics. Who were you listening to that influenced you to start doing this?

MCF: When I was 14...I was listening to DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, quickly followed by NWA, De La Soul and Public Enemy. Also Third Base. A Tribe Called Quest. Those were the bands in high school that I thought were the greatest things on earth and I listened to those records a lot. Public Enemy especially would have instrumental...like one-and-a-half minute instrumentals and you could take it and record it on the 4-track, and then you would have to time it by hand but you could start it again and create like a minor break and try to get the bars to sound contiguous. And then you could have a two-minute instrumental. That was long enough to make a song. We would make rap songs like that. But you know nothing I would show anybody until years later.

EG: How does it feel to be the Public Enemy of nerdcore? Based on the number of others nerdcore rappers featured throughout the movie, you are very influential within this genre, and it is growing because of you. How does that feel?

MCF: You know, all of those kids are making their own stuff, writing in their own voices. And they are very generous to point to me as the inspiration for some part of what they are doing, and I'll gladly accept the praise from them. It feels awesome, it's humbling and it's weird and I don't totally believe it all the time. It seems a little too impossible to have made up something that other people like.

EG: Shifting, to the film side of it. Negin, last night you were very surprised last night by the turnout and the enthusiasm of the crowd. Talk about how it feels to have a serious, bonafide hit on your hands.

NF: (laughing with Frontalot) You're ridiculous.

EG: That reaction and that turnout speaks to a very serious interest here.

NF: I feel like I'm going to burst into tears because it was amazing, more than I had ever imagined. I was really, really nervous that no one was going to show up. I was worried that no one was going to come to the premiere party. (Author's note: Negin apparently enjoyed a dance with Morgan Spurlock, no stranger to the surprise hit documentary phenomenon, at the premiere party according to Frontalot's blog.) I was worried that everyone would hate it, that after a joke line there would be no laughter and tumbleweeds and crickets and silence forever. For me, I worked on this film and everyone on our team worked on it for two and a half years. So I guess, we worked on it a whole bunch, enough that people seem to enjoy it, and it made me feel the most awesome I ever felt.

EG: It's funny, you talk about it that way. What you're saying here very much mirrors what Frontalot and the band were talking about in the film en route to their first road show, when they said, "We might have three people turn out...but we'll be appreciative of those three people!"

NF: Right!

EG: Was this what you've always wanted to do? Be a documentary filmmaker?

NF: I feel like documentary filmmaking...I never thought...It was not one of my stated goals. My stated goals have always been, I love every aspect of entertainment, and I wanted to do that, I wanted to do that in a comedic fashion. And I do a lot of different things, stand-up comedian, whatever. But this subject kind of fell in my lap, and I couldn't pass it up. I knew there was a story, and I'm kind of addicted now to the genre. I look at everything and I see a documentary. So, I'm a lifer, I think.

EG: Jumping into the film a little bit, there was one aspect that only gets a minimal amount of screentime, but it was something I found intriguing and was picking apart after the film in my head. You have the scene where you have a young lady who says that (pointing to Frontalot) this man...is racist? (Nagin starts laughing) What is the context of that comment?

MCF: Technically, she says that nerdcore...

NF: Nercord rapping is...

EG: That's right, so (laughing myself) you're propagating a racist enterprise.

NF: I mean, you know...I honestly don't remember what I asked her. I think I just very generally asked her, "What did you think of the show?" or "What do you think of nerdcore?" And she answered that she thinks nerdcore is racist. And I think it's legitimate to question the aims of the genre. Because it's generally a bunch of white dudes who are rapping in what may seem like...that they might be poking fun at black culture by doing this. Cause you know a lot of this stuff is humorous or whatever. So I think it's a legitimate concern that people might have.

EG: But I would think that the stronger argument could be made that Vanilla Ice was racist because he's ostensibly coopting the same culture aspect, but he's putting up a false front, rapping like he's a gangsta when he's from Carrollton, one of the more frou-frou...

MCF: (mock serious) Are you suggesting that Vanilla Ice's authenticity is suspect? (he and Negin both start laughing)

EG: Well, if he were still culturally relevant I might be.

NF: I think that claim would have also been reasonable. But in this sense, I think that what people need to remember about nerdcore is that they're not making any claims about their background. They're saying that "We're nerds." And they rap about nerdy things. And that's kind of honest. So there's actually...there's nooooo...(glances to her right, smiling at Frontalot) fronting.

MCF: I do think everyone who is making nerdcore should keep the question in mind. Should understand the history of minstrelsy and make sure that it is not informing what they're doing. Because there are people who call themselves nerdcore who are shooting more for comedy than some of us are. And who are maybe also trying to incorporate a critique of mainstream rap into their music. You put those two things together and you have potentially a recipe for lampooning a lot of cultural artifacts that are specifically black. And that's where you're going to run into possibly sustainable charges of racism. And you should always take that stuff seriously and...

NF: And avoid it!

MCF: I just urge those kids not to just yell at people who've asked the question of whether it's racist on their BBSs, but to actually look at themselves and if they discover that their material is not tinged with racism then to defend it on those grounds.

EG: It doesn't surprise me...your analysis of that is very astute and that doesn't surprise me. Call me crazy, but I would think that you would lose your nerdcore cred if you were not a very intelligent being. But looking at your lyrics, "Indier Than Thou" is some very sharp satire, and at the same time it flows musically very nicely. I dig that track a lot. Listening to "I Heart Fags" both in the movie and then on the website...do you ever shy away from getting political? Because there is some political aspect to it and that is very much keeping in the tradition of hip-hop, given somebody like Public Enemy with "9-1-1 is a Joke" and making a statement about society at large within your musical context.

MCF: Public Enemy of course was always primarily political. And since then, there have not been enough hip-hop bands that have been able to meld the showmanship and the entertainment and humor of someone like Flavor Flav with the deep core of political expression. There's The Coup, there's Paris...there's Michael Franti. Off the top of my head I can't think of any other political rappers with any sort of wide-reaching potential pop appeal. That said...I am not a political rapper, but I did grow up in Berkeley, and so when I make those political tracks, and I've done a few of them and there's even more of them on the upcoming album, it's mainly because I can't help it. If I'm pissed off about that in the back of my head, I can't get any fun writing done so I have to sit down and write the political song before I can get anything else done. As a career strategy, that's just horrible because a lot of the fans must be attracted to the fun less challenging material. I know there are a ton of Ron Paul-heads in the nerd community and they do not want to hear me rap about how lame it is that we don't have socialized medicine. And there are great wonderful human beings who happen to be right wingers and who are big nerds who hated my anti-war songs. And to them I say, "Thank you for liking the other songs despite knowing that my politics conflict so much with yours and please make use of your fast-forward button. I'm not insisting that you listen to the record all the way through. Why would I?

EG: It's not just how you talk about what it means to you to write these songs, the therapeutic aspects of it: you have that thought in your head, you have to get it out. Putting it in the context of the musical history, you really know your s**t.

MCF: (looking a bit embarrassed) Aw shucks, thanks. (Nagin laughs with me at the sudden shy turn of her star)

With a couple more brief comments, the interview wrapped up and Frontalot and Farsad picked up to move on to other appearances they had scheduled. Before he left, Frontalot reached into his messenger bag and handed me two CDs of his: Nerdcore Rising and Secrets From the Future. Again I found myself struck by how shy he seemed about his work, and thanked him for the gifts.

They left the interview room, and as I was packing up, I looked at the case for Secrets. The artwork on the front cover I recognized quickly as being that of Mike Krahulik, the artist half of the Penny Arcade creative team. Being a fan of the comic since friends introduced me to it a couple of years ago, it didn't surprise me to see the familiar style. Turning the CD over yielded a bit of a surprise and I rushed out to catch Frontalot to see if I was seeing the reverse art correctly.

"Pardon the interruption," I asked as his phone rang. "But is that Jeffrey Rowland's artwork on the back of Secrets?" Frontalot nodded, asking his caller to hold a moment. "I've known him a little while, we go a ways back," he replied before turning to take his call.

That I recognized two webcomic artists work on sight and out of context probably indicates I may have been nerdcore well before I knew what nerdcore was. If that is the case, so be it. There aren't many musical movements I've ever been interested in, being more the movie aficionado than a music one. But they call us movie "geeks" for a reason, and if it puts me in company with people like MC Frontalot and Nagin Farsad, I'll be happy to let my nerdcore flag fly.

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