Concert News
Mega Ran: Teacher/Rapper/Hero
Following on from his tour across America and last years dates in the UK with MC Lars, producer, performer and freestyle rapper Mega Ran will be heading to the Uk for 2 unmissable shows. Be prepared to be educated by this former teacher through the gift of rap.
10 May – Castle Hotel, Manchester
11 May – Surya, London
If you put videogames, the ’80s, hip-hop, soul music, jazz and standup comedy into a blender and hit “puree,” you’d have something close to The Mega Ran Experience.
The Penn State graduate and self-proclaimed “Teacher/Rapper/Hero” made waves by by combining 8-bit videogame sounds and hard-hitting hip-hop tracks, and has become a trailblazer in the budding genres of chiptune and nerdcore hip-hop, while maintaining a career as a middle school teacher.
Ran’s first album “The Call” was a critical success, featuring tracks with some of the underground’s most respected heads. Ran cut his teeth in the city of Philadelphia as a moonlighting emcee and producer, performing, freestyle rapping, producing and later engineering at a studio. After relocating to Phoenix, competing in the Scribble Jam emcee battle championships and taking an early exit, Ran almost quit before he was even started, when a creative lightning bolt struck, and a fire was lit.
Retro videogames were the catalyst. Random began the transformation into Mega Ran, his alter-ego, an ode to the classic video game character Mega Man. After creating a tribute album and receiving an unprecedented level of support and blessing from Capcom to continue, Ran was reborn and became a trailblazer in the budding “nerdcore” and chiptune subgenres, while coining his own term to describe what he had done, “Chip-Hop.”