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"
so if you're like under a rock or something, I'm here to let you know that Mega Ran 9 is done and available. I sent it to my good buddy S-Kill a few days ago, and he spilled the beans rather quickly. I'm not mad.. i guess he was excited..so was I .
anyway, you can get the album at my brand-spanking new website (still under construction, BTW)::
1-The Opening produced by DN3
2-8 is Enough produced by Storyvill
3-Splash Woman produced by Samik
4-UKnowTheName feat. Storyville produced by DN3
5-My Love feat. Rufus Pipes produced by Ravage
6-The Bailout feat. Storyville produced by K-Murdock
7-Megalude 9 feat. Vince the Rocket Scientist produced by Random
8-Run N Gun feat. Ciphurphace and Pugz Atoms produced by Dre Jackson
9-Get Equipped feat. Side Effect produced by Fingaz
So I'm finally done this Mega Ran 9 album... and it's set to release this week for free... I'll be leaving 3 songs off the final version and those will be available on the hardcopy/itunes version that'll be ready on March 20.
So as I release songs, I'll drop a brief description of each and how they came about.
RUN N GUN feat. Ciphurphace and Pugz Atoms
I got a myspace message from a guy named Dre Jackson. He makes beats. He sent me a few Mega Man tracks. One of them was the track that would become "Played a Fool" and another would become "Run N Gun."
Pugz Atoms out of Chicago is an artist whos hustle and vision I really respect. He's doing videos now, and he's a videogame head like me. I hadn't met him in person until last Fall at Scribble Jam, but we'd worked together on a few occasions. So, when I knew I wanted to do a posse cut with some scratching on the hook, I went and got him.
James Ciphurphace is a Tucson, AZ MC who is sick wit' it. He puts his all into every verse. He was the first MC I had heard in Arizona, and still manages to impress me. We worked together a while back on my "City Boy" remix, but I hadn't done a joint with him where we were just spittin'.
DJ Snyder, a masterful scratch artist who I met through my experiences in the Nerdcore ranks, is a professional, and a wizard on the tables. I personally got to witness the brilliance of Snyder at Nerdapalooza 08, where he managed to DJ most of the artists's sets and work so hard, he even suffered a nosebleed.
There really is no concept here; we're just killin it.
