MC Chris proves nerds can rap, too

Published: Saturday, July 03, 2010, 12:03 AM
Jim Testa/For The Star-Ledger

performed for a packed crowd of adoring fans Wednesday at Maxwell?€™s in Hoboken.

Short, squat, unshaven and unkempt, MC Chris looks like a fireplug with feet. You easily could mistake him for the pizza guy before you?d guess that he?s a world-famous rapper. But to his very loyal (and just as dorky) fans, the man stands taller than Eminem, Han Solo and Spider-Man put together.

MC Chris represents the gold standard for nerdcore, a genre that flips the stereotypical gangster image of hip-hop on its head and plays it for laughs.

Born Christopher Brendan Ward IV, MC Chris began rapping at house parties behind the then-Jersey City-based pop-punk band Dirt Bike Annie (a k a the Lee Majors) in 2001. So his show Wednesday at Maxwell?s in Hoboken ? the last gig of a two-month tour ? represented a homecoming of sorts. And the capacity crowd of diehard fans ? overwhelmingly white, under 30 and addicted to video games and comic books ? couldn?t have been happier to have him back in New Jersey, greeting him with nonstop displays of arm-waving, finger-pointing, shouted-out affection.

MC Chris? appeal ? as a rapper and a comic ? reaches across several demographics. From his start in the local pop-punk scene, he acquired a completely new audience with his voice-over and songwriting work for the Cartoon Network?s ?Adult Swim.? He self-releases his own music (to date: five album, three EPs and a compilation of early demos with the Lee Majors), books his own tours and acts as his own band, performing to pre-recorded backing tracks on a laptop.
And oh . . . he?s very funny.

For starters, his nasal, high-pitched voice makes him sound like a 5-year old who has been sucking helium. His lyrics celebrate the joys of pop culture, substance abuse and various other forms of misbehavior, with foul-mouthed bravado. But the man really can rap; his rhymes flow fast and furious, pushing the BPMs with impeccable timing and flawless delivery.

At Maxwell?s, he relied heavily on tracks from his latest album, ?MC Chris Goes To Hell,? released in April, at about the same time he wowed thousands at the Bamboozle festival in the Meadowlands parking lot. Clearly, the record has been out long enough for his fans to have memorized their favorite parts; on the sing-alongs (and that?s pretty much every song), the crowd kept pace with the MC on ?Drink?n Blunts? (an ode to overindulgence), ?006? (in which the MC brags about all his cool spy gadgets), ?Smackababy? (a call for corporal punishment for toddlers) and the very poppy ?Emo Party,? in which he embraces his inner Miley Cyrus.

Reaching back to earlier albums, Chris had the crowd sashaying back and forth to the dance-oriented ?Nrrrd Grrrl,? rocking out to ?Hoodie Ninja? and (when his voice started giving out) ending the night with the crowd doing most of the singing on ?The Tussin,? a cautionary tale about chugging Robitussin to get high.

MC Lars and fellow rapper YT Cracker (sound it out and the joke will make sense) opened with a similar set of comedic rap, heavily influenced by pop-culture references and old video games. A nerd-rap show is the only place where you can see a hip-hop concert and feel the imminent danger of a Star Trek Convention breaking out at any moment.

Key albums: ?MC Chris Goes To Hell? (2010), ?The New York University 8-Track Discography 10th Anniversary Edition? (2007), ?Life?s a Bitch and I?m Her Pimp? (2001)