In Defense of Ska Ep 151: Mega Ran

Nerdcore hip-hop entered mainstream consciousness in 2016 when a contestant on Jeopardy mentioned being a fan of the genre. Then, host Alex Trebek made a joke about fans of the genre being losers. Mega Ran, one of the main figures nerdcore (Hip-hop that focuses on video games, comic books, anime and other “nerd” topics) posted a diss back at Trebek. It quickly turned into a full on diss track with every major nerdcore rapper. At shows, Mega Ran had the audience shout, “Suck it Trebek!” 

Today we show how nerdcore is connected to ska. This year, Mega Ran released a kids album called Buddy’s Magic Toy Box, which has a ska song (“Recess”) on it. He modeled the song, after “Super Rad!” by The Aquabats. And he brought on Jer from Skatune Network as well as Stacked Like Pancakes to play on the track. It’s a killer song. Mega Ran’s relationship to ska goes even deeper. MC Lars introduced him to several artists in the genre years back. They’d listen to ska while on tour. Mega Ran loves the genre so much, he proudly wears a shirt that says, “Ska and Pro Wrestling are the Only Legitimate Forms of Art.” 

We discuss all of this as well as other tracks on Mega Ran’s record, Buddy’s Magic Toy Box. There’s songs about fruit, bullying, self-esteem and one on the history of rap music. It’s got a reggae groove as a tip of the hat to DJ Kool Herc and the genre’s Jamaican roots. We also talk about how Mega Ran got a song in Kevin Smith’s film Clerks 3. We talk about chip/ska artist Lo(u)ser ie Chris Graue. We discuss video game math rock band The Minibosses who famously cover the DuckTales theme song at their shows, and we talk about Mega Ran’s new music festival in Yuma, AZ called Dream Master Mixtape Music Festival. Former IDOS guests AJJ and Open Mike Eagle played the festival this year. 

Plus, with the help of IDOS friend Dane Jackson, we ask Mega Ran several pro-wrestling questions.

If you’d like to support us and listen to early access, ad-free episodes with bonus content, check out our Patreon! 

If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music. 

Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024. 

Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023. 

The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.