With the whirlwind of dispatches from Austin's South by Southwest Film and Interactive festival coming to a close today, I figured it would be appropriate to focus on a filmmaker at the event whose work correlates with the new media slant endorsed by Stream and the Wonderland community. Negin Farsad has two masters degrees from Columbia University, makes a living as a stand-up comedienne and produced the Comedy Central series The Watch List. While writing a musical called The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, the hyperactive New Yorker was introduced by her composer to the music of MC Frontalot, a leading practitioner of a niche music genre known as nerdcore, aka hip hop for geeks. Entranced by this unique community--especially by the way the fan base developed online--Farsad decided to make a documentary about it. The result is Nerdcore Rising, which follows Frontalot as he tours the nation. Late last night in Austin, I sat down with Negin and producer Andrew Mendelson to discuss their movie and the unique ways they're marketing it on online .
What originally got you interested in nerdcore?
NEGIN At first, I thought there was nothing to document. MC Frontalot never really used to perform. This was an internet genre. His performances were few and far between, so when he had them, they were a big deal to his fans. I went to one of his shows and it was really fun. He had these fans in the audience that had traveled plenty of times to see him. These were not your typical club-going people--they would argue about their triple kills in Halo. They were endearing, shy, nervous about the girls, all of that. I realized that the fans sealed the deal and there was a movie to be made.
Could MC Frontalot--and nerdcore itself--get this kind of attention without the internet?
N Without the internet, there would be no nerdcore, as [rapper] Badspell says in the movie. There are a couple of things that happened sequentially. Suddenly, everyone had a computer. The next wave was that everyone got software to do multiple things on their computers. The internet made it possible for people who could produce shit on their computer to then disseminate it on the internet and consume it on the internet. The mp3 democratized music creation and consumption. The thing about nerdcore that's so adorable is that these people didn't necessarily have the social wherewithal to go to a club, sing their hearts out and bring an audience by the sheer force of their charm onstage because they're socially awkward. But the internet lets you create an identity for yourself where you're a rapper, and nobody has to know that you don't coordinate your socks well, or whatever. For years, nobody knew what MC Frontalot looked like. There was a single picture of him on the web. Some people thought he was black.
ANDREW It's like having a mask. He was able to express his creativity, and his wit, without needing to expose the fact that he's of this socially awkward group.
Except that, eventually, he did expose that fact. You made a movie about it. What made him, and the audience, come out of the woodwork?
N I think it came to a point where he was like, "OK, I've sold enough of this album that it appears I have an audience. If I can muster the band and the courage to put on a live show, I can get an audience for that live show." I talked to a lot of people at the shows who felt like the stuff that came into town was hipster, punk or whatever, and it didn't address them. Here was this guy rolling into town, and for the first time, they could watch somebody rap about shit they fucking love.
So the live shows are a necessary second step.
N If you're an artist these days, your margin of profit on independently distributing your albums is very high. You can sell 5,000 albums and make more off another artist on another record label selling 55,000 albums because of the margin of profit. You're not being heard by as many people, but you're making as much money. That allows him to have financial autonomy.
Let's talk about financial autonomy. Are these people completely irrelevant to the recording industry?
N The recording industry is definitely going the way of the dinosaur. I haven't seen a record label do something very bold.
A Radiohead's profit margins [on In Rainbows] were enormous compared to their other albums. They consider it a tremendous success. Now, it's Apple looking for alternative distribution models. There are also other online distribution sources. What's so magical about nerdcore is that here are a group of people with the technical savvy to do web programming and web outreach. So they have this automatic know-how, and their audience has immediate access to them, because those are the people going to their blogs, who know how to use Torrents, and all these other distribution models. They're at the forefront of alternative distribution models.
At a roundtable discussion earlier this week, someone suggested that fans no longer exist for internet artists. They've been replaced by peers, since artists are constantly interacting with their audience.
N In terms of the fan and peer dichotomy, one of the things our film really does is make people feel like they have access to me as a filmmaker, and to MC Frontalot as their favorite rapper. That accessibility is really important. I want to continue having a relationship with the people who believe in the movie and MC Frontalot. People write me personal e-mails and I respond to them. It's a lot of work to cultivate that relationship, but it's what makes people real. That matters.
A He is incredibly loyal to his fans on an individual level. When he gets e-mails, he's responding to them that night, even when we had our premiere. People were sad they couldn't get into the show and we responded. We gave away T-shirts at the second screening, and all of a sudden, we had all these glowing comments.
That's great, but isn't there a certain point where he could get too popular to maintain such a close connection with his fans?
N It's scary, right? There's a point where you can't respond to every e-mail you get. I don't know. He doesn't want that. He wants to have a stable career, kind of like They Might Be Giants, where they're not on the cover of every magazine, but they have a renewing fan base. They're not on MTV, but they've had a great career for many years.
A He's always been about creating value for his fans. If it gets to a point where it's not on an individual level, he can offer it through his website--something for everybody to keep them coming back.
N The spirit of that thing is really important to me, which is why we've got Nerd of the Week on the website, and a web series. There is probably enough media for a feature-length film on the website.
Did you make this movie for fans of the genre?
N I tried to make this movie in a universal language that everybody could understand. It's meant to be seen by a lot of different kinds of people.
On your website, you asked people to give donations to finance the film. Was it mostly nerdcore fans who contributed?
N Yeah, I think so.
So, in a way, they made this movie.
N Yes. It's not like the language of the film is directed at them, but I do feel indebted to them, so I want to keep them involved.
What kind of responses have you been getting to the part of your site where people can request to have the movie come to their town?
N We've had thousands of requests. Dorkily, I've looked at the numbers, and I know what clusters of populations there are. They're largely in urban centers. I think it's a very strong chance that people in those urban centers will be able to see the film, and if anyone isn't able to see it then, it'll eventually be on DVD and people can get it through our website.
Have you considered putting the movie online?
N We're open to traditional and emerging forms of distribution, so we're not putting anything aside.
There's a movie here about chiptunes music called Blip Festival: Reform the Planet. Towards the end, the filmmakers address whether or not chiptunes could go mainstream. They conclude that it could happen, but they don't really care if it does. Nerdcore probably can't go mainstream, right?
N When I listen to dance hall reggae, I don't think, "I want to listen to more dance hall reggae," like as a genre. I don't think most people listen to music that way. People are more artist-specific.
A Good-specific.
N Good-specific, yeah. As long as people like MC Frontalot put out good music, they're going to continue to have careers, because they can find their fans directly online.
--Eric Kohn
This is the final SXSW dispatch. For yesterday's report, click here.