healthmedicinet

Copyright © 2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, before accede required.

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I’m Ira Flatow.

FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: And I’m Flora Lichtman.

FLATOW: And for a rest of a hour, we’re going to be blending it adult with swat songs about nerdy topics. But first, a sign about a imitation contest. The entries are all in for a winter inlet imitation contest. More than 400, 400 of we submitted your best shot. Now, we need you. You’re going to assistance collect a finalists. So go to sciencefriday.com/photocontest and opinion for your favorite. Go there. Click on a imitation of a vast red bird, a cardinal, right there on a website for some-more information.

LICHTMAN: So here we are. The rest of a hour: something opposite from what has come before. We’re articulate about nerd rap. What do we think, Ira?

FLATOW: Nerd – this is a right place for that.

LICHTMAN: Absolutely. we suspicion we competence like it. So a genre of strain has been called Nerdcore. And a hip-hop songs cover all from mechanism programming to information encryption to scholarship and math. And here’s a small ambience of how it sounds.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “POWER USER”)

DAMIAN HESS: (Rapping) we got your whole U.I. memorized on a initial interact. Wrote a book to keep a yip-yap to a smallest and staid back, set a lane on repeat and wrote rhymes. You’d consider a mechanism was assisting me do it so ideal sometimes. And I’m somebody who got classed as a energy user. When my aptitude gets embellished into a compound for a boom-bop-pow of productivity, I’m usually regulating a tools.

LICHTMAN: So that is a strain about…

FLATOW: Wow.

LICHTMAN: …a man’s difficult attribute with his computer. It was combined and achieved by a subsequent guest. Damian Hess, aka MC Frontalot, is a veteran rapper vital in Brooklyn, and he’s here with us currently in a studio in New York. Welcome to a show.

HESS: Good afternoon.

FLATOW: If you’d like to pronounce about it, a series is 1-800-989-8255. You can twitter us @scifri, S-C-I-F-R-I.

LICHTMAN: What is Nerdcore?

HESS: Well, it’s a kind of hip-hop. It’s like a lot of a rest of swat music, solely that a vigour on a rapper to be a cold chairman is extremely reduced.

(LAUGHTER)

LICHTMAN: Where did it come from?

HESS: Well, where have nerds come from?

(LAUGHTER)

HESS: We know where hip-hop came from. Hip-hop came from a Bronx in a late ’70s and early ’80s. Nerds usually arrange of oozed out of a enlightenment in general. we consider a word is attributed to Dr. Seuss.

LICHTMAN: But we came adult with a nerd – a word Nerdcore.

HESS: Nerdcore, yeah, holding a word hardcore and changing a initial several letters, that was all me.

LICHTMAN: Tell me a small bit about a history. When did that happen? When was Nerdcore born?

HESS: Coined early 2000, we guess. we was sitting, creation raps during my computer, saying that my vast guard was my assembly and a integrate of movement total that were trustworthy to a monitor, and we thought, wow, this is so dorky. This is so nerdy that it is Nerdcore. What if we were to fake that that were estimable of bravado?

LICHTMAN: And here we are.

HESS: Yeah.

LICHTMAN: You know, we’re so nerd. I’m not certain it’s even Nerdcore. We’re so nerdy that this has been around for so long, and we haven’t listened about it, Ira.

FLATOW: Because this is like Nerdcore – nerd adult to 11, we know?

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: This is so nerdy.

LICHTMAN: we feel out-nerded…

FLATOW: We are out…

LICHTMAN: …by this music.

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: But we consider it shows – and would we determine that that nerds can be rappers also, right? Not usually other people in other walks of life yet nerds like we and we and maybe Flora, we know…

LICHTMAN: Definitely.

FLATOW: …we can all – we can be rappers.

LICHTMAN: Well, we couldn’t but…

HESS: Gosh, we’re means of anything these days.

LICHTMAN: That’s not true.

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: Where do we come adult with your ideas for what you’re going to write about?

HESS: You know, once in a while, fans will come adult and insist – indeed mostly fans will come adult and insist that we cover their pet subject and…

FLATOW: It could be what like…

HESS: Well, that’s customarily something that’s approach too specific for me to consider it’s engaging to cover for 4 minutes, we know, given don’t we cover how Blizzard nerfed the, we know, my category that we play in “World of Warcraft”? we can’t – we can no longer use a same impression build that we was using. And my strike points rush like so many liberated doves. Won’t we cover this in a song? No, of march not. But occasionally, they will strike on something, like a Web cartoonist we know said: You unequivocally need to do a strain about cryptozoology. we said: You know what? That is a fruitful topic.

LICHTMAN: And?

HESS: Yeah. Oh, yeah. “Scare Goat” is a song. It’s about how – while it’s inarguable that Big Foots and Loch Ness monsters are real, a existence of a Tennessee fainting goat is too pitiable to be real. It defies logic.

LICHTMAN: We have a strain for we on tap. It’s called “Secrets from a Future.” What’s a strain about? And afterwards we’ll play it.

HESS: Data encryption, privately a suspicion that we’re creation so many information about ourselves, that a privacy is not critical to a people of a future. They don’t – they’re not going to caring about us adequate to impulse it, unless we encode it so delicately that it becomes severe simply from a nonplus angle, and afterwards maybe people will review a diaries a hundred years from now.

LICHTMAN: All right. Well, let’s hear a small bit of that, “Secrets from a Future” by MC Frontalot.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SECRETS FROM THE FUTURE”)

HESS: (Rapping) Get your many closely kept personal thought. Put it in a Word .doc with a cue lock. Stock it low in a .rar with descent precluded by a ridiculous length and a strength of a reputedly dictionary-attack-proof fibre of characters. This needed to frustrate all a disparagers of privacy: a NSA and Homeland S. You improved PGP a .rar given so distant they ain’t impressed.

(Rapping) You improved take a .pgp and imitation a conjuration of it out, indicate that into a TIFF. Then, if we find redoubt for your data, hasten adult a sequence of a pixels with a one-time pad that describes a fun time had by a thick-soled-boot-wearing stomper who danced to furnish pointless claptrap, all a intervals in between which, set in tandem with a stomps themselves, begat a seed of math un-guessable. Ain’t no censure about this cipher…

FLATOW: Wow.

LICHTMAN: So what happens in a carol of that song, that we can’t play given it’s an FCC…

HESS: Oh, it…

LICHTMAN: …minor violation.

(LAUGHTER)

HESS: It points out that we can’t censor secrets from a destiny with math. You can try, yet we gamble that in a destiny they giggle during a partially bottomed schemes and algorithms amassed to make cryptographs in a past.

LICHTMAN: Who’s your primary assembly for Nerdcore?

HESS: Well, we wish strain fans.

(LAUGHTER)

HESS: But it tends to be a subset of strain fans who are meddlesome in overly difficult lyrics and uncanny things that they commend from their possess personal obsessions.

LICHTMAN: Have we damaged through, we mean, have – do we consider – have we – any of your songs hit, arrange of, a categorical non-nerd-identified audience?

HESS: Nope. No. No. I…

(LAUGHTER)

HESS: we unequivocally wish we had a more…

FLATOW: But you’re means to do this full-time, we know…

HESS: Oh, yeah.

FLATOW: …you could make a vital out this. It’s not your day job, or your night job.

HESS: No, not my night job. It is my – well, it’s my day and night job. It’s extremely more…

(LAUGHTER)

HESS: …time-intensive than any pursuit we ever had, behind when we had jobs. But it is also extremely some-more rewarding to always be operative on your strain than on your, we know, clients.

FLATOW: And where do we play? Where could we all hear we or see you?

HESS: Well, we debate nationally, and I’ve gotten to debate a UK a small bit. I’m furloughed Australia a small bit this year. We’ll be out on a highway again in a fall. I’m operative on my sixth record during a moment. So I’m kind of stealing out in Brooklyn. But we’re – we still have conventions and things that we’re going to, Penny Arcade East in Boston in March, South by Southwest in March.

LICHTMAN: So we coined this term, Nerdcore, and now many other artists brand as Nerdcore rappers. We talked to Dr. Awkward for a Video Pick of a Week.

HESS: He’s fantastic. He’s so good.

LICHTMAN: He is unequivocally good. He was fun to pronounce with, as well. And we could hear him on a website, during sciencefriday.com. Is it delightful to have come adult with your whole – a whole genre of hip-hop?

HESS: That’s a – we mean, that’s, we know, a partial that creates me get adult in a morning. It’s like, ooh, this is not merely my explanation on how reticent strain subgenres’ names are. This is, in fact, a thing that resonated with some folks, and that folks looked past a ostensible comedy aspect of to find some value in and participated in. A lot of people participated, and continue to. There’s a whole era of Nerdcore rappers that seemed after we was already too aged for television.

(LAUGHTER)

LICHTMAN: we wanted to ask we about that comedy aspect. we mean, do people arrange of usually – do we have a problem with people usually dismissing this as a joke, or does that happen?

HESS: It unequivocally happens. we mean, a name Nerdcore invites that. we consider it usually sounds like something that’s going to be a joke. And it’s always improved to be underestimated, and afterwards agreeably warn people than it is to step adult insisting that you’ve combined a many critical and genuine work of art in tellurian story and half of them don’t…

(LAUGHTER)

HESS: …10, 20 percent of that what we pronounced before we listened it panned out.

FLATOW: But how many nerd rappers are there, do we think?

HESS: Oh, a hundred. Yeah. But a infancy of those are hobbyists, creation a songs during home. There are maybe 5 or 6 viable national-touring acts. Two or 3 adult in the, arrange of, tip level, who are consistently offered bedrooms out.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm.

LICHTMAN: we consider we should hear another song, and we indeed brought a instrumental for it. And we’re seeking you…

HESS: we did. we brought…

LICHTMAN: …to perform it.

HESS: we brought a subsidy lane for “Spoiler Alert,” that is not a difficult or low song. It simply seeks to hurt a endings of works of novel and film…

(LAUGHTER)

HESS: …and events in history, and some of a wonders of childhood.

LICHTMAN: So you’re about to hear MC Frontalot perform “Spoiler Alert” live.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SPOILER ALERT”)

HESS: (Rapping) You’re angry when we pronounce during a film. It’s usually another classical that we haven’t seen still. Just another ill-in-the-head in a plot. You’re like, Norman Bates, is that all we got? Might have guessed by a name of a thing. Don’t protest that we never listened a finale of “The Crying Game.” Well, it’s a penis. At this point, a fluffy dog. Nothing to see here, pierce along.

(Rapping) The Apes ruled a Earth. Vader’s poppa to Luke. Brad Pitt and Ed Norton are apparently dual people, yet they’ve got to share one character. Bruce ain’t alive, kid, no matter how he stares during you. Snape kills Dumbledore, yet with a eminent motive. Everybody’s guilty on a Oriental locomotive. Veidt’s villainy ends universe squabbling, and Deckard is a replicant, probably.

MOLLY HAGER: (Singing) Say we hurt all for you…

LICHTMAN: That was awesome. Thank you.

HESS: Thanks.

LICHTMAN: Our Twitter supporters are seeking who your influences are, have been.

HESS: You know, we grew adult on Public Enemy in De La Soul, which, if we use a Internet and math, will assistance we figure out how aged we am.

(LAUGHTER)

HESS: And Del a Funky Homosapien, we think, out of – along with De La Soul, have that arrange of like we don’t caring what we consider of my picture and I’m going to, kind of, dork it out and be intelligent and uncanny and humorous during a behind of a bus, and you’re not going to have anything to contend about it. Well, we consider we utterly pulled that opinion out of those guys.

There’s been a lot of fascinating and arrange of geeky swat over a years these days. we adore Busdriver, MF Doom.

LICHTMAN: You’re listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY, on NPR. I’m Flora Lichtman, here with Ira Flatow, of course, and MC Frontalot.

FLATOW: we have tweet. Let me just…

LICHTMAN: Great.

FLATOW: …share this with you. Lynda O’Clare(ph) says: My daughter’s seventh category scholarship teachers use raps in category like this one. Is it Nerdcore?

HESS: Guaranteed, yes. That’s…

(LAUGHTER)

HESS: That’s going to qualify.

FLATOW: Seventh category is creation – maybe they’re creation adult their possess Nerdcore raps.

HESS: we wish so. we consider that swat is a good educational tool.

LICHTMAN: Did we start doing this as a kid?

HESS: Yes. Well, not that young. It was early high school. And shamefully, during first, dark divided from a world, so one would see that we suspicion we was someone who should be doing raps. It was annoying to me that people would consider that we suspicion we was good during it.

FLATOW: Was that given you’re such a nerd?

HESS: we mean, that’s partial of it. You know, we don’t…

(LAUGHTER)

HESS: That’s for a cold kids. we mean, performance, in general, yet swat in particular, is for a cold kids to do. You know, a rapper should travel into a room and authority all a attention, have all a charisma, and everybody should indicate him or her and say, gosh. we wanna be some-more like that. And that’s not what being a nerd was when we was young.

FLATOW: You can have it all, though.

HESS: These days.

LICHTMAN: You know, one thing that we adore about Nerdcore, a reason given when we found out about this from a documentary “Nerdcore Rising” – tip of a shawl to that documentary – we usually desired that if we are authentic and we do something, we can demonstrate yourself good about what we love, we can get an audience, if you’re learned during it.

HESS: That’s a equation. It doesn’t always work out, yet we have been flattering propitious with it.

FLATOW: Let’s get a – we have a integrate of phone calls in – Ryan in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania. Hi, Ryan.

RYAN: Hi. How are we doing? Thanks for holding my call.

FLATOW: You’re welcome.

RYAN: we usually wish to say, first, I’m a outrageous fan of MC Frontalot, seen him in unison a few times, and we adore a whole Nerdcore area.

I work during a PAX East as an enforcer, and have had a event to usually to association with tons and tons of people from this offset. And it’s unequivocally given them utterly a approach to demonstrate themselves when society, before, has unequivocally put us down as being nerdy or, as dorkish or a geek. And you’re articulate about a gathering with 60,000 people there, and it’s just, we mean, it’s usually massive, and it’s a good thing economically. You’re saying all these smashing artists, games and things come out of this enlightenment that has been before usually unequivocally looked down upon. we mean, we haven’t seen this, really, since, like, “Revenge of a Nerds,” maybe, where this enlightenment has unequivocally been voiced in such a certain way.

FLATOW: Thanks for that call – certain reinforcement.

HESS: Yeah. Thanks. The enforcers are great, and I’m looking brazen to PAX – to 3 PAXes this year.

FLATOW: And you’re going to continue to be rapping.

HESS: That is my plan.

FLATOW: When can they see we next? Because people wish to see we next. Where are we going to be?

HESS: The really subsequent event would be in Boston and Cambridge during a finish of March. Oh, wait, no, in Austin a small later- a small progressing in March.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm.

HESS: A week and a half from now.

FLATOW: Have any ideas for another song, or you’re operative on?

HESS: I’m operative on a whole record about angel tales and…

FLATOW: Fairy tales.

HESS: Fairy tales, and that should be flattering fun, if we can get it finished – struggling.

FLATOW: A nerdy version, nerdy sincerely tale?

HESS: Well, all we do is automatically like a nerdy version. we can’t assistance it.

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: So it’s going to be something that’s unexpected. Well, we’ll watch for it. Thank we really many for holding to be with us.

HESS: Thank we so many for carrying me on.

FLATOW: Thank you, Flora.

LICHTMAN: Thank you.

FLATOW: And that was Damian Hess, aka MC Frontalot, veteran rapper from Brooklyn.

Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from a materials contained herein might be used in any media but detrimental to NPR. This twin is supposing for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to a Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s before permission. Visit a permissions page for serve information.

NPR transcripts are combined on a rush deadline by a executive for NPR, and correctness and accessibility might vary. This content might not be in a final form and might be updated or revised in a future. Please be wakeful that a lawful record of NPR’s programming is a audio.