it's gonna be a busy summer. I'm already working on the Forever Famicom album with K-Murdock, and doing some original pieces for a PC and iPhone game called Caster.
The blue bot is back in town! It's been a couple of years now since we were introduced to Mega Ran, the robotic alter-ego of underground rapper slash producer Random. The robotic rapper's debut won praise for sampling eight-bit instrumentals from classic Mega Man games of our childhood, and as it turns out, Capcom themselves realized the value of tapping into such nostalgia. Rather than cranking out another modern day sequel with a super sleek design, Capcom went retro for Mega Man 9 and designed a new OLD game. 15 years after the last Mega Man game to ever appear on the original NES came a new sequel that for all intents looks, feels and SOUNDS like you're playing it on that old sideloading toaster oven. What's next - a new sequel to Duck Hunt? (Only if they let us shoot the damn dog this time.) I kid. In truth I was overjoyed to get the old pixellated Mega Man back. Three shots at a time, let's wage war on the forces of evil.
Now Random may be borderline otaku when it comes to Mega Man but if you're going to obsess then you might as well go the full-length. After all the beats and rhymes of Mega Ran obviously tapped the pulse of still beating Nintendo hearts, those same fans who will pay $5 on a Wii just to play Super Mario Bros. one more time; the same ones who bought the "Game Over" compilation with video game raps by Masta Ase and the Cocoa Brovas (Smif-N-Wessun) almost a decade ago. Having already proved the formula works once, the rated R robot star decided he too could make a sequel to his last NES classic. It may not be entirely clever to call the album "Mega Ran 9" but it seems Capcom has no objections - in fact their logo appears prominently on the album's back cover. To be fair the name is also justified by the beats - Random and his slew of production cohorts sample almost exclusively from the new game of the same name. This results in some surprisingly brilliant interpretations such as Samik's "Splash Woman"
