While I don't know much about what makes rap "good" or "bad", I think that Frontalot, Whoremoans, and Wheelie (of Optimus Rhyme) are all pretty good rappers. In terms of use of language. I also like Immortal Technique for the same reason! If a person releases a 'nerdcore' track, regardless of what the song is about, if that person can't rap well, then I'm not interested.
If those dudes are as good as Immortal Technique I'll have to check em out.
EDIT: Huh, seems like I have alot of stuff to check out when I get my comp up and running.
Okay, this isn't even the worst one I listened to (sorry, but I'm just going to be honest -- as far as hip hop goes, this isn't very good). It's okay as a novelty / joke song, but it's not much for music. As far as the rapping goes:
(1) The rhythm is stiff as shit. This song is the antithesis of what people mean when they say "flow," but that's pretty typical for all the Nerdcore songs I listened to. This one, at least, stayed primarily on the quarter beat, which is still more regular and "rhythmic" than I could say about the other Nerdcore songs I heard. There's still plenty of quickly sneaking little syllables in here and there to force a rhyme in, and for the most part it simply just hits the bass / snare every quarter. Snoozefest as far as the lyrical rhythm goes. No consistent rhythmic theme, no flow.
(2) There are punchlines, but not like PUNCHLINES. There's no big hit at the end of the 4th bar, which is pretty cliche for rap these days, but still something one associates with great rappers like Jay-Z. Part of that is due to the fact that it's virtually devoid of metaphor and wordplay. One of the big things that makes rap so exciting to me, and many of its adherents, is the rampant language play that occurs. This is very literal. There are no double meanings, there are no creative metaphors, no slang, just straight forward rhyming words.
(3) My god the rhymes are simple. Something like 70% of the rhymes are monosyllabic, and the rest are two syllables (duosyllabic?). Also, a rhyme is rarely repeated for more than a single couplet. Good rappers will hold a single rhyme through 16 bars, if not longer, and emphatically they will have more complex rhymes than one or two syllables. Also, depending on the rapper and their style, you'll see internal rhymes within the lines, or places rhythmically at different points throughout the verse (Jay-Z is the antithesis of this, that dude is MARRIED to the beat, but there's plenty of other rappers to point to).
(4) The delivery (how his voice holds through the rhymes) ... I mean my friends were giving better deliveries on home-made goof off tapes in high school. I'm very open to unorthodox deliveries, and I at least like that he's not giving the very typical, very cliche deep, stern voice delivery, he's fluctuating it and moving all over and things like that, but it doesn't have particularly great breath control, and half the time it sounds sighed instead of authoritatively delivered.
SO ...
(1) Rhythm -- 75 Bars (Black's Reconstruction) Black Thought is far and away the KING of rhythm in rapping today. You can't HELP but nod your head to that rhyme. It really doesn't matter what he says, your eyelids are going to get hooded and your neck will get wobbly by the cadence of the words alone. Notice how he returns to the same word, on the same beat, over and over, creating a beautiful repeating rhythm, moving on beat, off beat, NEVER wasting a syllable. This shit is pure heat.
(2) Wordplay -- metaphor? Meaning? Wordplay? Simile? Yeah, this has you covered:
"Your firearms are too short to box with God." Love it. I love stuff like that. Hip hop is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to stuff like that. This is just one simple example.
(3) Rhyme Scheme -- see 75 Bars video above for a great example of a complex rhyme scheme, but why not another? Here is Eminem -- never mind the controversy, a truly great rapper -- in a freestyle. If you can't see the difference between this rhyme scheme, in repetition, difficulty, execution, and creativity, and the ones employed by Frontalot, you simply aren't looking:
Eminem Thirstin Howl Freestyle
The fact that he holds that two syllable rhyme, exactly on the end of each bar, for as long as he does, hitting the exact same rhythm in the rhyme every time through, slightly transforming it at different points to keep it working throughout, is great stuff. This is transforming syllables and consonants and pronounciations and working rhythms and holding patterns and doing truly interesting stuff with language.
Seriously, M.O.P. is Exhibit A when it comes to a rapper I listen to almost exclusively for the delivery. I don't even know what half their fucking songs are about, because who cares? The shit knocks.
THAT
my friends is rap. That has a history, a tradition, an urgency, a creativity, and an established criticism and self-awareness and a whole mess of other things BEYOND just the rapping that I picked apart here. If you can't watch those things and see the difference in lyrical quality ALONE, you aren't listening.
God Damn It Anyway. I'm not fucking the Godfather either. I'm an overly tall, of Norwegian descent and about 2000 miles from New York but I can still appreciate the god damn fucking movie. PS I'm also not a space marine and yet I can play Gears of War.
I like Nerdcore Hip Hop because being from a nice, affluent, rural town outside of Chicago, I can't really identify with drugs, cops, and adversity.
Now, Zork? That's something I can get down to.
Have you tried, for example, listening to the non-Nerdcore hip hop that is NOT about drugs or cops?
Or have you, perhaps, tried sympathizing with people who are unlike you?
And again (and again and again) these generalizations that all non-Nerdcore hip hop is about "drugs, cops, and adversity" is ignorance, plain and simple, and is exactly the type of myopic sentiment expressed by many Nerdcore fans which gives the genre its bad reputation.
The Green Eyed Monster on
0
VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
God Damn It Anyway. I'm not fucking the Godfather either. I'm an overly tall, of Norwegian descent and about 2000 miles from New York but I can still appreciate the god damn fucking movie. PS I'm also not a space marine and yet I can play Gears of War.
Exactly.
I'm not a junkie, but I still like Lou Reed. I'm not a stoned Rastafarian, but I still groove on Bob Marley. I'm not a poor sharecropper from the pre-Civil Rights South, but the blues still moves me. etc.
That Bert and Ernie edit of Ante Up is some of the best shit I've ever seen.
Quick nitpick: Q-Bert was well known long before Kool Keith and Dan The Automator put him on a record. I believe he was already kicked out of DMC competitions by that point because people were scared to battle him, and he'd already released a couple records with Invisbl Skratch Pikls, formerly the DJ branch of the Rock Steady Crew.
Also, while I thought the 4 youtubes explanation of rhythm, wordplay, rhyme scheme and delivery were pretty cool, I think I can shrink it down to two examples: Not the best songs ever, maybe not even the best of their respective years, but these two songs encapsulate all 4 dimensions equally, and well:
If Nerdcore has a flaw, it's that motherfuckers are trying way too damn hard to be "different" instead of simply learning how to rhyme adequately. It's like "HEY, LOOK AT ME, I'M RAPPING ABOUT VIDEO GAMES." Instead of just going ahead and rapping about video games.
I like Nerdcore Hip Hop because being from a nice, affluent, rural town outside of Chicago, I can't really identify with drugs, cops, and adversity.
Now, Zork? That's something I can get down to.
About a year ago - I was in a conversation with someone and caught myself saying (for the 100th time) that "I dont like hip hop because its all about Guns, Bitches and Bling, or money... I just cant identify with it".
I suddenly reasised that this cant be right. There HAD to be hip hop out there that was intelligent, political, truthful and insightful. So I went looking. There is some amazing stuff out there.
I guess its a little erratic, but some I've found and enjoyed are:
Jurassic 5 - Smart, good natured, breaking away from the gansta image.
Immortal technique - When he's not trying too hard to convince me he's hard, he's got some amazing lyrics and his politics are enthralling if not extreme. At least he has something to say.
Mos Def - Smart, political stuff with soul
Brother Ali - some really honest shit in there
Sage Francis - some smart, introspective stuff.
Scroobius Pip - While probably bing somewhat of a technical trainwreck - his lyrics are amazing.
I've found that there is so much out there thats worth listening to. I still feel weird sometimes when I'm getting down to a song about the kind of adversity that I'll never know... But I dig it because I respect the artist and I dont care who you are, what colour you are, or where you're from - The song moved me.
And being moved by a hip hop song was the entire point of my search... So I'm the white guy bobbing his head and self consciously omitting the N-word when I sing along. But I'm not doing it cynically or without understanding where it came from or what its communicating. I recommend trying a little harder.
Did you listen to any others, if so, can you do the same for those? Or like a shorter version if you don't feel like it?
I can see myself getting more into hip-hop and while I do like Frontalot quite a bit I find it's hard to find a starting point to start listening to the "real" (using that term loosely, don't want to get into a semantics debate we've already had) stuff when there's so much out there already.
Quick nitpick: Q-Bert was well known long before Kool Keith and Dan The Automator put him on a record. I believe he was already kicked out of DMC competitions by that point because people were scared to battle him, and he'd already released a couple records with Invisbl Skratch Pikls, formerly the DJ branch of the Rock Steady Crew.
Quick nitpick: Q-Bert was well known long before Kool Keith and Dan The Automator put him on a record. I believe he was already kicked out of DMC competitions by that point because people were scared to battle him, and he'd already released a couple records with Invisbl Skratch Pikls, formerly the DJ branch of the Rock Steady Crew.
Lots of DJ Q-Bert's stuff is full of nerd references.
Watch Wave Twisters sometime, it is fucking awesome and you'll have to watch it on slo-mo to get all the geek references. The DVD case looks like an Atari 2600 game for chrissakes. But he's not "nerdcore," because he doesn't ride on his nerdiness.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I suddenly reasised that this cant be right. There HAD to be hip hop out there that was intelligent, political, truthful and insightful. So I went looking. There is some amazing stuff out there.
Honestly, we have a thread on exactly this topic every couple of months in either H/A or D&D and at this point I can't understand how anybody who is even remotely interested in music and spends time on the Internet for fun wouldn't know about all the positive, interesting, lyrical hip-hop out there.
This isn't an insult to you or anybody else, Fallingman. I just don't get it.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I suddenly reasised that this cant be right. There HAD to be hip hop out there that was intelligent, political, truthful and insightful. So I went looking. There is some amazing stuff out there.
Honestly, we have a thread on exactly this topic every couple of months in either H/A or D&D and at this point I can't understand how anybody who is even remotely interested in music and spends time on the Internet for fun wouldn't know about all the positive, interesting, lyrical hip-hop out there.
This isn't an insult to you or anybody else, Fallingman. I just don't get it.
Because there are always people who are just beginning to cast about for new music.
My argument is that people get into a ridiculous amount of rock and roll that is intellectualy far more inferior than even some of the most base hip-hop, with subject matter just as abhorrent and mindless, and yet you hardly hear people going "I dunno about that Motley Crue.. I just don't identify with that AC/DC" but somehow when it's hip-hop, they go "It's just cars and bling."
Gangsta shit is just as artistically relevant as Company Flow. Which has always been a garbage fucking group, by the way. rat farts on tin-cans and the most broken delivery since Johnny Cab went up in flames in Total Recall. Granted, it paved the way for artists like Sluggo/Atmosphere, Blockhead, Prefuse and the like, but the album itself seemed to get over solely because it had no funk or soul in it. People were seeking it out for the same reason they seek out "nerdcore." now: It felt safer to them.
I think it's the art that feels a little more "dangerous" for lack of a better word, that is worth a look or two. If it makes you hesitate, I think a peek is in order.
But rejecting entire sections of the best hip-hop ever had to offer solely because of subject matter is like saying you won't listen to Zeppelin or The Misfits because they sang Green Hell and abused women with sea-life in their hotel rooms.
Again -- this is a problem with Nerdcore hip hop. It is admired for its topic alone, and like I said topic is like 20% of a lyric, and a lyric in turn is at best half of what makes a good hip hop song. I consider it a major insult to a genre to say its best asset is its topic a la the Christian Rock discussion above.
Is your contention then that nerdcore is bad hip hop, as opposed to not being hip hop at all?
Just trying to clarify.
I like Nerdcore Hip Hop because being from a nice, affluent, rural town outside of Chicago, I can't really identify with drugs, cops, and adversity.
Now, Zork? That's something I can get down to.
About a year ago - I was in a conversation with someone and caught myself saying (for the 100th time) that "I dont like hip hop because its all about Guns, Bitches and Bling, or money... I just cant identify with it".
I suddenly reasised that this cant be right. There HAD to be hip hop out there that was intelligent, political, truthful and insightful. So I went looking. There is some amazing stuff out there.
I think that hip-hop about guns, bitches, and money can be interesting too, for the exact reason that Cel already said: contrary to popular belief, lyrical content only makes up a small part of what makes good hip-hop good. I don't really give a shit what Jay-Z or T.I. are talking about, because goddamn if those guys aren't good rappers.
Again -- this is a problem with Nerdcore hip hop. It is admired for its topic alone, and like I said topic is like 20% of a lyric, and a lyric in turn is at best half of what makes a good hip hop song. I consider it a major insult to a genre to say its best asset is its topic a la the Christian Rock discussion above.
Is your contention then that nerdcore is bad hip hop, as opposed to not being hip hop at all?
Just trying to clarify.
Yeah, basically.
Positive aspect of Nerdcore in comparison to hip hop at large:
-- novel subject matter
and then that's all I got. So it's interesting for its subject matter, but compared to hip hop proper, it falls short on a lot of the central aspects of what makes the genre so rich and interesting.
Did you listen to any others, if so, can you do the same for those? Or like a shorter version if you don't feel like it?
I can see myself getting more into hip-hop and while I do like Frontalot quite a bit I find it's hard to find a starting point to start listening to the "real" (using that term loosely, don't want to get into a semantics debate we've already had) stuff when there's so much out there already.
I did listen to the others, and lots of the same criticisms apply. While the subject matter is definitely novel, it just doesn't have the rich production, or the lyrical rhythm, or the metaphorical and wordplay content, or the vocal delivery of other artists I really love. Also, while "video games and geek stuff" is a cool topic to hear sung about, because I'm into that shit, I also feels its limiting.
Part of what makes hip hop so great for me is that it's a personal narrative. When a rapper raps well, you feel like you know them somehow by the end of the record. If you just stick to geek references, you don't really fill out that big personal connection like the truly great ones that I admire.
If you want starting points into hip hop, jump into the general music thread and we can talk about it. I have more than a few "good starting point" recommendations I can throw out depending on what you gravitate to. For example, if you're into Nerdcore, I really couldn't recommend Deltron 3030 enough.
@The Green Eyed Monster: Will do (or have done, but I'll take it to the other thread)
Also thought I'd mention that I really am only a fan of Frontalot. I've listened to Optimus Rhyme and other nerdcore artists and while I appriciated certain aspects, Frontalot was really the only artist that I found to be inifinitely listenable. I can't really articulate why just yet (past "I think he is clever and interesting") and I'm afraid to without a better grasp of the genre.
For nerdcore, I’ve only really listened to Frontalot. My favorite track is ‘It is Pitch Dark’. Not a very complicated piece, and I don’t particularly identify with it (I didn’t do text adventures), but there’s something about it I really like.
Aside from BTNH, other rap/hip hop artists/groups I listen to would be DMX, 2Pac, Biggie, Run DMC, Outkast, Eminem, and D12, just to name a few.
All those artists come from generally the same school and the same sound. Run DMC was the first great pop rap group. 2Pac and Biggie were huge commercial gangster successes at perhaps the pinnacle of commercial gangsta rap, whose torch was picked up by Eminem as far as chart-topping and controversial goes. D12 is obviously an offshoot of Em (and a piss poor one at that). Outkast stands out as an experimental pop rap group, but in essence everything you've listed there is commercial, or pop, or primarily sales oriented hip hop. Yeah, it's the cream of the crop, so it stands out for its honesty and soul, but its still more or less the same.
If you really want to get into the nitty gritty, you have to start exploring the different hip hop sounds, like the soul / jazz sound of the Native Tongues click (which was commercially successful, but only briefly in the early '90s). You should explore the West Coast gangsta funk, and not just Dr. Dre. Then of course there's the underground / experimental sound that exploded with the release of Funcrusher Plus by Company Flow. Also, the later stoner jazz of Madlib and MF Doom, the clean, sci-fi sounds of Automator, the heavily layered commercial leftover sound of Prince Paul on his concept albums and collaborations with Automator, etc. so on and so forth to simply scrape the surface. Oh shit, and I didn't even mention the live sound largely created by the Roots (who initially were just biting De La really hard, like lots of people did back then) and piggybacked with varying success by bands like Gym Class Heroes or Black Eyed Peas. And of course Dillah, and his Slum Village work, and how he inspired guys like 9th Wonder etc. so on and so forth. And shit, it took a real act of will to put down the Lyrics Born and his growing neo-West Coast funk sound growing on Quannum at the record store today.
There is a BREADTH of sound in hip hop. Simply because you guys haven't taken the time to really explore the genre doesn't mean you can run around slagging off on it.
This. is. why. hip hop heads are annoyed with Nerdcore. It has no connection with the larger musical movement that is "hip hop." It is simply a novelty act created by nerds so that they can continue their myopic generalizations of a genre (primarily, it should be noted, created and listened to by black people) that is rich, rich, rich with history and tradition which is easily overlooked by the outsider due to things like commercial manipulation of the market, and, yes, good old fashioned American racism.
Thank you. This expressed what I wanted to say without being racist or uninformative. :P :^:
Your other post is great too --its informative but I especially like it because I think people forget how ILL eminem was in his prime.. dude was on the top top elite level of emcees
and ernie and bert mop killed me.. awesome
Deltron 3030 is a great suggestion for hip hop 101/nerdcore type cats... I love him but haven't really bumped his shit consistently in years.. great mc
I wanna throw this suggestion out there: have some tenacity, stick with new music for a while and give it a chance to grow on you and sink in.
Back when I was just getting into hip hop and listened to CDs, I tried to listen to this group called The Wu-Tang Clan. Their stuff was just too gritty for me at first and I couldn't listen to it. But since I was in the car a lot and had a limited supply of CDs, I came back to them and gave them a chance. I sat down and listened, really listened to their music, and they went from something I couldn't stand to one of my favorite groups of all time... Turns out the Wu was fuckin amazing.. but if I hadn't been forced to handle my ADD/close-mindedness/laziness/mental and musical inflexibility, I would have missed out on one of the best groups of all time..
I find with mp3s these days and rampant ADD, I often don't give new music the chance it deserves. Don't be like me. If you're going to explore a new genre, give it a chance..
Also someone mentioned Brother Ali earlier.. great choice.. dude is a great emcee. He makes GREAT songs but he can freestyle too:
brother ali freestyle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1wTb6F7swU
valiance on
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
edited September 2008
I think, that those of you who are affronted by nerdcore because it is not as good as "real" hip hop, should really just relax. Because I liked MC Frontalot, I became less hostile to rap in general, and actually started to like some supposed "real" hip hop. Without Frontalot, I would not have. I doubt I'm the only one. And those who like only nerdcore are not likely to have been convinced of the greatness of rap anyway, so if they never become fans it's not like anything is really lost.
Also? Whatever you say about rap, I still think White and Nerdy is a better rap than Ridin' Dirty, and always will. Thank you.
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Thats because White and Nerdy is actually some pretty damn good rapping.
I order all of my sandwiches with mayonnaise
I'm a wiz at Minesweeper, I could play for days
Once you've see my sweet moves, you're gonna stay amazed
My fingers movin' so fast I'll set the place ablaze
I suddenly reasised that this cant be right. There HAD to be hip hop out there that was intelligent, political, truthful and insightful. So I went looking. There is some amazing stuff out there.
Honestly, we have a thread on exactly this topic every couple of months in either H/A or D&D and at this point I can't understand how anybody who is even remotely interested in music and spends time on the Internet for fun wouldn't know about all the positive, interesting, lyrical hip-hop out there.
This isn't an insult to you or anybody else, Fallingman. I just don't get it.
I see your point - all I can say is that its because I had to go looking for it. The commercial stuff that's played on the radio never interested me enough to look deeper. I guess its a combination of so much being on the radio, with so little quality. I was never introduced to it by friends or people I knew through school or work.
I should also mention - someone above said that they didnt get why people need to look so hard for deep meaning in their music. Thats just my thing - and its the same with all my other music. Sure I have a few "foot-tappers" in my collection, but my particular draw is to music that moves me, makes me think, or has something to say. In that respect - I understand that someone like Jay-Z might be technically brilliant... But I dont enjoy listening to him. And his flow, style, beats etc were never enough to make me take an interest in hip-hop as a genre.
So - to answer the original question... There was never anything about the hip hop that I was exposed to that interested me enough to look further. In fact, it was probably exasperation at how inane the stuff I was seeing was that finally made me look into it.
I don't think Nerdcore rap is a massive problem. I'm a bit of a fan of rap myself, and it's all about expression, if that be expression of real experiences in the ghetto, ego boosting, or video games and computers. Whatever. Express away. MC Frontalot I feel is the strongest nerdcore rapper for a reason - lots of his tracks aren't about games or computers, but just reference them in the lyrics. It's a clever nod to the nerds listening in.
People from the Cover Competition thread will know I'm in a couple of bands - a real one and a band that covers video game music. My VG band just takes VG tunes and rocks out to them, so whatever. But there is a VG band that takes a normal approach, adding lyrics and stuff, and I think it comes out wonderfully:
The Megas are the band i'm talking about, a group of guys that sing their way through Mega Man 2's OST. They're clever guys, some of their stuff is really mindblowingly clever. I certainly wouldn't smack the Megas on at a family party but sometimes when I'm sitting and chilling I'll listen to their album. I also might listen to OC Remixes. And I dare say the people who are downloading our stuff do the same with my VG cover band.
So the question I'm dragging up is does all this 'nerdcore' genre music (be it game cover bands, nerdcore rappers, whatever) fall into the same trap of not being 'as good' as whatever else is avaliable because of what it is? And if not, why is Nerdcore Rap different?
I'm also inclined to mention the song where Eminem/D12 sampled Soul Calibur for no particular reason.
I like some rap. Clever rap. Eminem's early stuff in particular (The Slim Shady LP is one example, but specifically The Marshall Mathers LP is pretty bloody genius). Everything else just doesn't resonate with me.
Nerdcore actually does, because it's people rapping about stuff I actually give a crap about. That said, the only Nerdcore artist I'll actually listen to is MC Frontalot, because every other Nerdcore rapper out there feels... well, stiff.
Again -- this is a problem with Nerdcore hip hop. It is admired for its topic alone, and like I said topic is like 20% of a lyric, and a lyric in turn is at best half of what makes a good hip hop song. I consider it a major insult to a genre to say its best asset is its topic a la the Christian Rock discussion above.
Is your contention then that nerdcore is bad hip hop, as opposed to not being hip hop at all?
Just trying to clarify.
Yeah, basically.
Positive aspect of Nerdcore in comparison to hip hop at large:
-- novel subject matter
and then that's all I got. So it's interesting for its subject matter, but compared to hip hop proper, it falls short on a lot of the central aspects of what makes the genre so rich and interesting.
But there are nerdcore songs that don't talk about Mario.
MC Frontalot - Indier than Thou
I’m so indie that my shirt don’t fit.
You wonder out loud, “Frontalot yo why you come so ill-equipped?â€
Because being all prepared to get on the mic is selling out
and I ain’t even about to relinquish indie clout.
I look confused, like I just got out of bed.
My rhyme style reflects this.
Use my overdeveloped sense of irony to deflect dis-
missiles, exploding all around me.
Unpromoted, don’t know how you found me.
Soundly situated in obscurityland,
famous in inverse proportion to how cool I am,
and should I ever garner triple-digit fans
you can tell me then there’s someone I ain’t indier than.
(He’s so indie) Indie I be.
Ain’t an obscurer rapper out there who be indier than me.
(He’s so indie) Indie, and how!
Come not near to me, for I be indier than thou.
(He’s so indie) Indie indeed;
if I were on an indie label, you could call me mainstream.
(He’s so indie) Indie I am.
All the better for the Frontalot to leverage his brand.
“I am sought of them that asked not for me;
I am found of them that sought me not...
These are a smoke in my nose.â€
Delving deep into my letterbox when I discovered
fan mail for MC Front. It kind of hovered
before my vision. I made a decision to open it up.
It said, “Yo, Frontalot, you suck!â€
Whew! I was worried for a second that I’d started to earn love,
seeing all my indie points burned up.
Next you know, I’m meeting pop stars in stretched cars,
doing the soundtrack for the Wendy’s tie-in with Jar Jar,
paying rent on time, owning things,
suing Napster with my best friend Sting.
It’s like a nightmare (yep), ‘cause that ain’t nerdcore (nope).
Yes, I’m indier than thou within my nerdcore flow.
And if you’re slow on the uptake, I’ll lay it out:
hipsterism is a religion to which you got to be devout.
Must be seen as in between unpopular and hated
or else get excommunicated.
If listeners were only in it for the geek references, why is this even out there? It's not about video games at all, but rather hipsterism. The closest it comes to anything nerd-ish are mentions of Napster and Jar Jar, which were both pretty mainstream.
You Got Asperger's by Frontalot is another example of a good nerdcore song that has no game references at all
You got Asperger’s, this ain’t a barbecue.
It’s your whole afternoon though, lost down a rabbit hole,
looking for a timepiece, wonder when your date’s at,
wonder if she’ll visit you at all today — relax.
Wonder how many ribbons to expect in her hair —
to deflect talk of triplets in respect for the pair
or to stare at the bow made of four different colors —
didn’t notice someone talking to you: there were others
in the room, out in the gloom of the periphery.
To shift your focus for a moment is to give the ribbons liberty,
and that’s to suggest they make escape.
This is a secret from the future: can’t rewind like a tape.
Got to make the best and the most of each moment as it happens,
got to keep your eyes on those bows, got to trap in
your vision all four of them ‘cause this is a first:
she might have noticed last time that you like ribbons that are hers.
And sometimes you wish you didn’t. Sometimes it slips your mind.
But when she’s supposed to visit isn’t one of those times,
and you’re on one of those lines of thought that you encounter
when you’d rather your surroundings were quieter instead of louder
so that you could focus on other than a clock tick.
You don’t want to talk shit but the one who made the clock made the cog stick.
Minutes are violent noise,
obliterating what you thought of as silent poise .
Miles of boys before you done got crushed
out on a girl like that, her hair flush
with ribbons on all occasions and every day.
If only making study of the bow could stem its getaway.
Letter A S P E R G E R S:
wonder whether she’s so confident with alphabets
that she’d do it backwards skipping alternate letters.
If you offer demonstration, would she consider that clever?
This bitter endeavor: trying to predict a reaction.
You know you’re supposed to try to give the notion traction
but it don’t do nothing ‘cept make the clock tick.
It don’t even do that. Yo, you got Asperger’s, kid.
And I feel for you, son. I know love is hard.
Can’t even write down all the answers on the back of a card.
From the back and the far end of a cafeteria line
you seem to catch sight of a ribbon. Fabric shines,
and you abandon your tray, leave it clatter on the floor.
You haven’t planned it this way. You can’t look at her no more.
You don’t know what her eyes are like, whether she ever smiles,
whether anything other than how she wears her hair beguiles.
And while some apron ladies holler at you,
you clutch your left ear and stand still like a statue.
You could count cut corn on the floor without subtracting
misplaced fish sticks like Dustin Hoffman overacting.
Ain’t this already a scene in need of a fast forward?
Why won’t the lunch people hush, do they court discord?
You think you see a flash of color fleeing; it could be worse:
you could have known how many ribbons there are, if they were hers.
He's got quite a bit of stuff like this but it gets lost in the shuffle of Nerdcore Rising, the PA Theme, etc.
Thats because White and Nerdy is actually some pretty damn good rapping.
I order all of my sandwiches with mayonnaise
I'm a wiz at Minesweeper, I could play for days
Once you've see my sweet moves, you're gonna stay amazed
My fingers movin' so fast I'll set the place ablaze
White and Nerdy is technically nerdcore, IMO. If all nerdcore is (by some people's insistence) bad, then this is an anomaly.
Of course I like most of MC Frontalot's work, too, so he would be an anomaly as well. Other nerdcore rappers, not so much. Other examples of Frontalot raps that don't center on nerd topics: This Old Man, Which MC Was That?, Mountain Kind, Speed Queen, Romantic Cheapskate, Fresh Dog, A Very Unlikely Occurence, Floating Bridge... the list goes on. Really, he has more raps about just everyday things (like how cool his dog is, how he feels about getting older) than he does about strictly nerd stuff.
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
I think, that those of you who are affronted by nerdcore because it is not as good as "real" hip hop, should really just relax. Because I liked MC Frontalot, I became less hostile to rap in general, and actually started to like some supposed "real" hip hop. Without Frontalot, I would not have. I doubt I'm the only one. And those who like only nerdcore are not likely to have been convinced of the greatness of rap anyway, so if they never become fans it's not like anything is really lost.
Also? Whatever you say about rap, I still think White and Nerdy is a better rap than Ridin' Dirty, and always will. Thank you.
I think the problem hip-hop heads have with nerdcore is that some people never grow out of it and eschew really good hip-hop out there that isn't nerdcore. Like, I know that for a lot of people, Pokemon/Dragonball Z/Digimon/Sailor Moon were their first introduction to anime. That's fine, that's great, but it'd be awfully weird if that person kept watching Digimon instead of branching out into Akira.
Posts
I can see this ending badly :P
Rhyme of the Nibelung by MC Frontalot.
Okay, this isn't even the worst one I listened to (sorry, but I'm just going to be honest -- as far as hip hop goes, this isn't very good). It's okay as a novelty / joke song, but it's not much for music. As far as the rapping goes:
(1) The rhythm is stiff as shit. This song is the antithesis of what people mean when they say "flow," but that's pretty typical for all the Nerdcore songs I listened to. This one, at least, stayed primarily on the quarter beat, which is still more regular and "rhythmic" than I could say about the other Nerdcore songs I heard. There's still plenty of quickly sneaking little syllables in here and there to force a rhyme in, and for the most part it simply just hits the bass / snare every quarter. Snoozefest as far as the lyrical rhythm goes. No consistent rhythmic theme, no flow.
(2) There are punchlines, but not like PUNCHLINES. There's no big hit at the end of the 4th bar, which is pretty cliche for rap these days, but still something one associates with great rappers like Jay-Z. Part of that is due to the fact that it's virtually devoid of metaphor and wordplay. One of the big things that makes rap so exciting to me, and many of its adherents, is the rampant language play that occurs. This is very literal. There are no double meanings, there are no creative metaphors, no slang, just straight forward rhyming words.
(3) My god the rhymes are simple. Something like 70% of the rhymes are monosyllabic, and the rest are two syllables (duosyllabic?). Also, a rhyme is rarely repeated for more than a single couplet. Good rappers will hold a single rhyme through 16 bars, if not longer, and emphatically they will have more complex rhymes than one or two syllables. Also, depending on the rapper and their style, you'll see internal rhymes within the lines, or places rhythmically at different points throughout the verse (Jay-Z is the antithesis of this, that dude is MARRIED to the beat, but there's plenty of other rappers to point to).
(4) The delivery (how his voice holds through the rhymes) ... I mean my friends were giving better deliveries on home-made goof off tapes in high school. I'm very open to unorthodox deliveries, and I at least like that he's not giving the very typical, very cliche deep, stern voice delivery, he's fluctuating it and moving all over and things like that, but it doesn't have particularly great breath control, and half the time it sounds sighed instead of authoritatively delivered.
SO ...
(1) Rhythm -- 75 Bars (Black's Reconstruction) Black Thought is far and away the KING of rhythm in rapping today. You can't HELP but nod your head to that rhyme. It really doesn't matter what he says, your eyelids are going to get hooded and your neck will get wobbly by the cadence of the words alone. Notice how he returns to the same word, on the same beat, over and over, creating a beautiful repeating rhythm, moving on beat, off beat, NEVER wasting a syllable. This shit is pure heat.
(2) Wordplay -- metaphor? Meaning? Wordplay? Simile? Yeah, this has you covered:
Hidin' Like Thieves
"Your firearms are too short to box with God." Love it. I love stuff like that. Hip hop is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to stuff like that. This is just one simple example.
(3) Rhyme Scheme -- see 75 Bars video above for a great example of a complex rhyme scheme, but why not another? Here is Eminem -- never mind the controversy, a truly great rapper -- in a freestyle. If you can't see the difference between this rhyme scheme, in repetition, difficulty, execution, and creativity, and the ones employed by Frontalot, you simply aren't looking:
Eminem Thirstin Howl Freestyle
The fact that he holds that two syllable rhyme, exactly on the end of each bar, for as long as he does, hitting the exact same rhythm in the rhyme every time through, slightly transforming it at different points to keep it working throughout, is great stuff. This is transforming syllables and consonants and pronounciations and working rhythms and holding patterns and doing truly interesting stuff with language.
(4) Delivery -- Bert and Ernie got you covered:
ANTE UP!!!
Seriously, M.O.P. is Exhibit A when it comes to a rapper I listen to almost exclusively for the delivery. I don't even know what half their fucking songs are about, because who cares? The shit knocks.
THAT
my friends is rap. That has a history, a tradition, an urgency, a creativity, and an established criticism and self-awareness and a whole mess of other things BEYOND just the rapping that I picked apart here. If you can't watch those things and see the difference in lyrical quality ALONE, you aren't listening.
Now, Zork? That's something I can get down to.
Or have you, perhaps, tried sympathizing with people who are unlike you?
And again (and again and again) these generalizations that all non-Nerdcore hip hop is about "drugs, cops, and adversity" is ignorance, plain and simple, and is exactly the type of myopic sentiment expressed by many Nerdcore fans which gives the genre its bad reputation.
I'm not a junkie, but I still like Lou Reed. I'm not a stoned Rastafarian, but I still groove on Bob Marley. I'm not a poor sharecropper from the pre-Civil Rights South, but the blues still moves me. etc.
Quick nitpick: Q-Bert was well known long before Kool Keith and Dan The Automator put him on a record. I believe he was already kicked out of DMC competitions by that point because people were scared to battle him, and he'd already released a couple records with Invisbl Skratch Pikls, formerly the DJ branch of the Rock Steady Crew.
Also, while I thought the 4 youtubes explanation of rhythm, wordplay, rhyme scheme and delivery were pretty cool, I think I can shrink it down to two examples: Not the best songs ever, maybe not even the best of their respective years, but these two songs encapsulate all 4 dimensions equally, and well:
Juice (Know the Ledge) - Eric B. and Rakim
Catch a Bad One - Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
If Nerdcore has a flaw, it's that motherfuckers are trying way too damn hard to be "different" instead of simply learning how to rhyme adequately. It's like "HEY, LOOK AT ME, I'M RAPPING ABOUT VIDEO GAMES." Instead of just going ahead and rapping about video games.
Geek: Remixed - A Decade's worth of ruined pop culture memories
Xbox Live - Fatboy PDX
Man I hate Zork, because I could never really identify with a Grue.
https://medium.com/@alascii
About a year ago - I was in a conversation with someone and caught myself saying (for the 100th time) that "I dont like hip hop because its all about Guns, Bitches and Bling, or money... I just cant identify with it".
I suddenly reasised that this cant be right. There HAD to be hip hop out there that was intelligent, political, truthful and insightful. So I went looking. There is some amazing stuff out there.
I guess its a little erratic, but some I've found and enjoyed are:
Jurassic 5 - Smart, good natured, breaking away from the gansta image.
Immortal technique - When he's not trying too hard to convince me he's hard, he's got some amazing lyrics and his politics are enthralling if not extreme. At least he has something to say.
Mos Def - Smart, political stuff with soul
Brother Ali - some really honest shit in there
Sage Francis - some smart, introspective stuff.
Scroobius Pip - While probably bing somewhat of a technical trainwreck - his lyrics are amazing.
I've found that there is so much out there thats worth listening to. I still feel weird sometimes when I'm getting down to a song about the kind of adversity that I'll never know... But I dig it because I respect the artist and I dont care who you are, what colour you are, or where you're from - The song moved me.
And being moved by a hip hop song was the entire point of my search... So I'm the white guy bobbing his head and self consciously omitting the N-word when I sing along. But I'm not doing it cynically or without understanding where it came from or what its communicating. I recommend trying a little harder.
Did you listen to any others, if so, can you do the same for those? Or like a shorter version if you don't feel like it?
I can see myself getting more into hip-hop and while I do like Frontalot quite a bit I find it's hard to find a starting point to start listening to the "real" (using that term loosely, don't want to get into a semantics debate we've already had) stuff when there's so much out there already.
Aaaaaaaand he released one of my favorite turntablist-centered hip-hop/break mixes of all time -- which is crammed with samples from Street Fighter II and Spider-Man read-along storybooks.
Lots of DJ Q-Bert's stuff is full of nerd references.
Watch Wave Twisters sometime, it is fucking awesome and you'll have to watch it on slo-mo to get all the geek references. The DVD case looks like an Atari 2600 game for chrissakes. But he's not "nerdcore," because he doesn't ride on his nerdiness.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Honestly, we have a thread on exactly this topic every couple of months in either H/A or D&D and at this point I can't understand how anybody who is even remotely interested in music and spends time on the Internet for fun wouldn't know about all the positive, interesting, lyrical hip-hop out there.
This isn't an insult to you or anybody else, Fallingman. I just don't get it.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Gangsta shit is just as artistically relevant as Company Flow. Which has always been a garbage fucking group, by the way. rat farts on tin-cans and the most broken delivery since Johnny Cab went up in flames in Total Recall. Granted, it paved the way for artists like Sluggo/Atmosphere, Blockhead, Prefuse and the like, but the album itself seemed to get over solely because it had no funk or soul in it. People were seeking it out for the same reason they seek out "nerdcore." now: It felt safer to them.
I think it's the art that feels a little more "dangerous" for lack of a better word, that is worth a look or two. If it makes you hesitate, I think a peek is in order.
But rejecting entire sections of the best hip-hop ever had to offer solely because of subject matter is like saying you won't listen to Zeppelin or The Misfits because they sang Green Hell and abused women with sea-life in their hotel rooms.
Geek: Remixed - A Decade's worth of ruined pop culture memories
Xbox Live - Fatboy PDX
Is your contention then that nerdcore is bad hip hop, as opposed to not being hip hop at all?
Just trying to clarify.
I think that hip-hop about guns, bitches, and money can be interesting too, for the exact reason that Cel already said: contrary to popular belief, lyrical content only makes up a small part of what makes good hip-hop good. I don't really give a shit what Jay-Z or T.I. are talking about, because goddamn if those guys aren't good rappers.
On the other hand, I'm happy, because I got to read a well written post with new hip hop/rap for me to listen to in it!
Positive aspect of Nerdcore in comparison to hip hop at large:
-- novel subject matter
and then that's all I got. So it's interesting for its subject matter, but compared to hip hop proper, it falls short on a lot of the central aspects of what makes the genre so rich and interesting.
Part of what makes hip hop so great for me is that it's a personal narrative. When a rapper raps well, you feel like you know them somehow by the end of the record. If you just stick to geek references, you don't really fill out that big personal connection like the truly great ones that I admire.
If you want starting points into hip hop, jump into the general music thread and we can talk about it. I have more than a few "good starting point" recommendations I can throw out depending on what you gravitate to. For example, if you're into Nerdcore, I really couldn't recommend Deltron 3030 enough.
:P
Also thought I'd mention that I really am only a fan of Frontalot. I've listened to Optimus Rhyme and other nerdcore artists and while I appriciated certain aspects, Frontalot was really the only artist that I found to be inifinitely listenable. I can't really articulate why just yet (past "I think he is clever and interesting") and I'm afraid to without a better grasp of the genre.
Thank you. This expressed what I wanted to say without being racist or uninformative. :P :^:
Your other post is great too --its informative but I especially like it because I think people forget how ILL eminem was in his prime.. dude was on the top top elite level of emcees
and ernie and bert mop killed me.. awesome
Deltron 3030 is a great suggestion for hip hop 101/nerdcore type cats... I love him but haven't really bumped his shit consistently in years.. great mc
I wanna throw this suggestion out there: have some tenacity, stick with new music for a while and give it a chance to grow on you and sink in.
Back when I was just getting into hip hop and listened to CDs, I tried to listen to this group called The Wu-Tang Clan. Their stuff was just too gritty for me at first and I couldn't listen to it. But since I was in the car a lot and had a limited supply of CDs, I came back to them and gave them a chance. I sat down and listened, really listened to their music, and they went from something I couldn't stand to one of my favorite groups of all time... Turns out the Wu was fuckin amazing.. but if I hadn't been forced to handle my ADD/close-mindedness/laziness/mental and musical inflexibility, I would have missed out on one of the best groups of all time..
I find with mp3s these days and rampant ADD, I often don't give new music the chance it deserves. Don't be like me. If you're going to explore a new genre, give it a chance..
Also someone mentioned Brother Ali earlier.. great choice.. dude is a great emcee. He makes GREAT songs but he can freestyle too:
brother ali freestyle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1wTb6F7swU
Also? Whatever you say about rap, I still think White and Nerdy is a better rap than Ridin' Dirty, and always will. Thank you.
I order all of my sandwiches with mayonnaise
I'm a wiz at Minesweeper, I could play for days
Once you've see my sweet moves, you're gonna stay amazed
My fingers movin' so fast I'll set the place ablaze
https://medium.com/@alascii
I see your point - all I can say is that its because I had to go looking for it. The commercial stuff that's played on the radio never interested me enough to look deeper. I guess its a combination of so much being on the radio, with so little quality. I was never introduced to it by friends or people I knew through school or work.
I should also mention - someone above said that they didnt get why people need to look so hard for deep meaning in their music. Thats just my thing - and its the same with all my other music. Sure I have a few "foot-tappers" in my collection, but my particular draw is to music that moves me, makes me think, or has something to say. In that respect - I understand that someone like Jay-Z might be technically brilliant... But I dont enjoy listening to him. And his flow, style, beats etc were never enough to make me take an interest in hip-hop as a genre.
So - to answer the original question... There was never anything about the hip hop that I was exposed to that interested me enough to look further. In fact, it was probably exasperation at how inane the stuff I was seeing was that finally made me look into it.
People from the Cover Competition thread will know I'm in a couple of bands - a real one and a band that covers video game music. My VG band just takes VG tunes and rocks out to them, so whatever. But there is a VG band that takes a normal approach, adding lyrics and stuff, and I think it comes out wonderfully:
The Megas are the band i'm talking about, a group of guys that sing their way through Mega Man 2's OST. They're clever guys, some of their stuff is really mindblowingly clever. I certainly wouldn't smack the Megas on at a family party but sometimes when I'm sitting and chilling I'll listen to their album. I also might listen to OC Remixes. And I dare say the people who are downloading our stuff do the same with my VG cover band.
So the question I'm dragging up is does all this 'nerdcore' genre music (be it game cover bands, nerdcore rappers, whatever) fall into the same trap of not being 'as good' as whatever else is avaliable because of what it is? And if not, why is Nerdcore Rap different?
I'm also inclined to mention the song where Eminem/D12 sampled Soul Calibur for no particular reason.
XBL/PSN/Steam: APZonerunner
Nerdcore actually does, because it's people rapping about stuff I actually give a crap about. That said, the only Nerdcore artist I'll actually listen to is MC Frontalot, because every other Nerdcore rapper out there feels... well, stiff.
But there are nerdcore songs that don't talk about Mario.
MC Frontalot - Indier than Thou
You wonder out loud, “Frontalot yo why you come so ill-equipped?â€
Because being all prepared to get on the mic is selling out
and I ain’t even about to relinquish indie clout.
I look confused, like I just got out of bed.
My rhyme style reflects this.
Use my overdeveloped sense of irony to deflect dis-
missiles, exploding all around me.
Unpromoted, don’t know how you found me.
Soundly situated in obscurityland,
famous in inverse proportion to how cool I am,
and should I ever garner triple-digit fans
you can tell me then there’s someone I ain’t indier than.
(He’s so indie) Indie I be.
Ain’t an obscurer rapper out there who be indier than me.
(He’s so indie) Indie, and how!
Come not near to me, for I be indier than thou.
(He’s so indie) Indie indeed;
if I were on an indie label, you could call me mainstream.
(He’s so indie) Indie I am.
All the better for the Frontalot to leverage his brand.
“I am sought of them that asked not for me;
I am found of them that sought me not...
These are a smoke in my nose.â€
Delving deep into my letterbox when I discovered
fan mail for MC Front. It kind of hovered
before my vision. I made a decision to open it up.
It said, “Yo, Frontalot, you suck!â€
Whew! I was worried for a second that I’d started to earn love,
seeing all my indie points burned up.
Next you know, I’m meeting pop stars in stretched cars,
doing the soundtrack for the Wendy’s tie-in with Jar Jar,
paying rent on time, owning things,
suing Napster with my best friend Sting.
It’s like a nightmare (yep), ‘cause that ain’t nerdcore (nope).
Yes, I’m indier than thou within my nerdcore flow.
And if you’re slow on the uptake, I’ll lay it out:
hipsterism is a religion to which you got to be devout.
Must be seen as in between unpopular and hated
or else get excommunicated.
If listeners were only in it for the geek references, why is this even out there? It's not about video games at all, but rather hipsterism. The closest it comes to anything nerd-ish are mentions of Napster and Jar Jar, which were both pretty mainstream.
You're talking about Hellbound?
They didn't. Eminem's lyrics are from a freestyle, and were dubbed over the SC sample later. By Masta Ace, I believe.
It’s your whole afternoon though, lost down a rabbit hole,
looking for a timepiece, wonder when your date’s at,
wonder if she’ll visit you at all today — relax.
Wonder how many ribbons to expect in her hair —
to deflect talk of triplets in respect for the pair
or to stare at the bow made of four different colors —
didn’t notice someone talking to you: there were others
in the room, out in the gloom of the periphery.
To shift your focus for a moment is to give the ribbons liberty,
and that’s to suggest they make escape.
This is a secret from the future: can’t rewind like a tape.
Got to make the best and the most of each moment as it happens,
got to keep your eyes on those bows, got to trap in
your vision all four of them ‘cause this is a first:
she might have noticed last time that you like ribbons that are hers.
And sometimes you wish you didn’t. Sometimes it slips your mind.
But when she’s supposed to visit isn’t one of those times,
and you’re on one of those lines of thought that you encounter
when you’d rather your surroundings were quieter instead of louder
so that you could focus on other than a clock tick.
You don’t want to talk shit but the one who made the clock made the cog stick.
Minutes are violent noise,
obliterating what you thought of as silent poise .
Miles of boys before you done got crushed
out on a girl like that, her hair flush
with ribbons on all occasions and every day.
If only making study of the bow could stem its getaway.
Letter A S P E R G E R S:
wonder whether she’s so confident with alphabets
that she’d do it backwards skipping alternate letters.
If you offer demonstration, would she consider that clever?
This bitter endeavor: trying to predict a reaction.
You know you’re supposed to try to give the notion traction
but it don’t do nothing ‘cept make the clock tick.
It don’t even do that. Yo, you got Asperger’s, kid.
And I feel for you, son. I know love is hard.
Can’t even write down all the answers on the back of a card.
From the back and the far end of a cafeteria line
you seem to catch sight of a ribbon. Fabric shines,
and you abandon your tray, leave it clatter on the floor.
You haven’t planned it this way. You can’t look at her no more.
You don’t know what her eyes are like, whether she ever smiles,
whether anything other than how she wears her hair beguiles.
And while some apron ladies holler at you,
you clutch your left ear and stand still like a statue.
You could count cut corn on the floor without subtracting
misplaced fish sticks like Dustin Hoffman overacting.
Ain’t this already a scene in need of a fast forward?
Why won’t the lunch people hush, do they court discord?
You think you see a flash of color fleeing; it could be worse:
you could have known how many ribbons there are, if they were hers.
He's got quite a bit of stuff like this but it gets lost in the shuffle of Nerdcore Rising, the PA Theme, etc.
I'd also like to mention I Heart fags, and Special Delivery by MC Frontalot as songs that have nothing to do with nerdcore.
White and Nerdy is technically nerdcore, IMO. If all nerdcore is (by some people's insistence) bad, then this is an anomaly.
Of course I like most of MC Frontalot's work, too, so he would be an anomaly as well. Other nerdcore rappers, not so much. Other examples of Frontalot raps that don't center on nerd topics: This Old Man, Which MC Was That?, Mountain Kind, Speed Queen, Romantic Cheapskate, Fresh Dog, A Very Unlikely Occurence, Floating Bridge... the list goes on. Really, he has more raps about just everyday things (like how cool his dog is, how he feels about getting older) than he does about strictly nerd stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N-igERH9vs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qopIOUYZ7cE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKQtcirM26M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdnLhN4SeYY
I think the problem hip-hop heads have with nerdcore is that some people never grow out of it and eschew really good hip-hop out there that isn't nerdcore. Like, I know that for a lot of people, Pokemon/Dragonball Z/Digimon/Sailor Moon were their first introduction to anime. That's fine, that's great, but it'd be awfully weird if that person kept watching Digimon instead of branching out into Akira.