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About That Pod #3 - Mega Ran on Our Mega Ran List · Deprogrammed Music Podcast

0:00
And then The funny thing is I still just hit record and start
0:03
talking. And you can pretty much
0:04
immediately tell that I've hit record and started talking.
0:08
I don't know. I, I telegraphed it a little
0:09
bit. So First things first, I assume,
0:16
I assume you've played the remake, ran the Final Fantasy 7
0:19
remake, Yes. Oh, yeah.
0:22
I made the mistake. I've been I've been avoiding it
0:25
like the plague because I know what's going to I knew what was
0:29
going to happen is it was going to take over my life and I've
0:32
got a wife and two kids. I can't have that happening.
0:37
I, I, I was telling will this, my sister gave me APS store like
0:44
a game card and it had like 2550 bucks on it.
0:48
Now I made the mistake of going and looking and the remake was
0:52
on sale. I was like, OK, well I'll buy
0:54
it. I just won't play it.
0:57
And then I cracked it open. I started playing it a couple
1:02
weeks ago and sure enough, I'm hooked.
1:04
But firstly, I guess your thoughts on it because we were
1:11
talking when we did the show on you, which God, when you say it
1:15
that way, it sounds weird. But when we when we did our mega
1:18
mega Rand episode, you know, we talked about black Materia and
1:23
like, I honestly think that it's it's a classic record.
1:29
Like it's timeless. It is hand hands down one of my
1:35
favorite records of all time. Like I freaking love what you
1:40
did there. So I guess like I'm what I'm
1:44
trying to get at is like marrying your love of what
1:48
existed with Final Fantasy 7 and obviously understanding the
1:51
story and being able to weave it into something of your own and
1:56
what you thought of the remake. Oh, yeah, I thought it was
2:00
great. It definitely made me want to go
2:03
back and, you know, revisit some of those songs and things.
2:08
And but yeah, it gave me all the feels.
2:12
I knew they would make some changes here and there and kind
2:14
of strip some moments out and I was OK with it.
2:17
It was, it was beautiful, man. Like that game got me in my
2:21
feelings, man, was a lot of emotion playing through that
2:24
just just just because as a fan for so long, I just really never
2:27
thought this would happen, you know, right.
2:29
And so to see this fully fleshed out the way, you know, these
2:33
developers intended in 97, you know, was, was a sight to
2:38
behold, man. There's times in in, you're in
2:42
the city just looking up at the plate and you're just like, you
2:45
see the sheer size of it and it's just breathtaking, man.
2:48
It really? Yeah.
2:49
Yeah, it's awesome. And I So what do you think
2:53
'cause I'm still in Midgar? I mean, obviously like the first
2:58
time I played out, I thought the whole game was going to be in
2:59
Midgar. If I'm being honest, I didn't, I
3:01
didn't think I was ever going to get out of Midgar, which,
3:03
whatever, man, I thought that was cool.
3:05
But when you hear some of the voices for the first time, oh,
3:09
you know what? You, you played this, you, you
3:12
played with this on the Black Material remake, Mako.
3:18
Did that blow your mind when you heard Mako, 'cause I always
3:20
thought it was Mako. Definitely did.
3:23
There was a lot of a lot of confusion.
3:25
I was just like, wait, what? You know, like all this time we
3:28
thought, you know, so that's one part of it is where like when
3:32
you've had it in your head, the way this should be pronounced,
3:35
you've had it in your head the way people should sound.
3:37
And now they all have voices and personalities and, you know,
3:41
weird quirks and, you know, facial expressions.
3:45
It's a little odd because it's like I felt like I knew this
3:49
game and I knew this world, you know, and I'm like, what?
3:52
My whole life is a lie, you know, I started, I started
3:55
thinking like everything's a lie, like nothing's real, you
3:58
know, like, what else are they going to say will be like his
4:00
name's Beret, you know, like I just kept thinking like being
4:06
prepared for like some other strange change.
4:09
But from friends of mine who are into Japanese culture, they,
4:14
they're very clear about it that there I think that there is no
4:19
long vowel sound after a consonant.
4:22
So I think it's a very common thing to not not have a, a sound
4:28
like Mako. He'll be Mako.
4:31
So I don't know, like some friends already knew that.
4:34
And I guess in other shows, I think in was it Legend of Korra
4:38
or some other show, they say they have Mako and they
4:41
pronounce it Mako, but I didn't think so.
4:46
That tripped me out. I was like, oh, and I actually,
4:50
I think I was listening through. Or did you release Mocha Reactor
4:57
as like a a semi single leading up to the remake, 'cause I feel
5:01
like I heard that bit. Yeah, I thought so, 'cause I, I
5:04
feel like I heard that bit and I was.
5:05
And then when it came up in the game, I was like, oh, like that
5:10
same feeling like I've been or I've, I've lied to myself.
5:13
Like this is my, my, my life has changed now.
5:16
Seriously. Like I had no idea.
5:23
So here's a story about you. My God, I don't even.
5:27
I don't even know when this was, but I stumbled on black materia
5:32
on band camp and I was like, holy shit, this is great.
5:36
Like what's going on here? And I, I found you on Twitter
5:40
and used to come through here all the time.
5:43
The Virginia Beach with my homies, the nerd Lux.
5:45
He used to do like there's like, I forget the video game heaven,
5:49
I think, or there's there's a couple spots out in Virginia
5:52
Beach that you'd come through and I hit you up on Twitter.
5:55
I was like, man, you're coming through here.
5:58
Black material is great. I'd really love to come see you.
6:02
And you immediately you followed me, hit me up in the DMS and
6:04
you're like, all right, you better be there.
6:06
And I was like, well, shit. And then of course, I
6:10
immediately felt bad because I ended up working late at work.
6:12
But I always thought like that, that kind of interaction is
6:17
cool. Like from then on, I knew you
6:19
were going to be my dude. That's so awesome.
6:25
So I've been there a few times. So did you make it to any of the
6:29
other events? Or unfortunately no like I
6:31
think. I've only been there like maybe
6:32
2-2 three times. Yeah, I feel like you, you came
6:36
through like 3 times within like a year and a half or something.
6:40
And unfortunately, like every time you came, I was working.
6:46
Oh, I understand, it happens, See.
6:50
So, all right, I mean, I feel like I'm hogging all this time.
6:55
Will and Jody, y'all don't have to be quiet.
6:57
I know I'm, I'm, I'm running my mouth here.
6:59
But you don't have to be quiet. Well now baby, my my Final
7:02
Fantasy knowledge is not on par with you guys.
7:05
I'm just, I'm just here enjoying the conversation.
7:09
OK making me feel weird over here like it's just me and ran
7:13
having a combo and y'all are like just that.
7:15
Should come natural to you, Justin.
7:17
That's your question. You're a podcast bro.
7:19
Man, that ain't true though. Like this is all of ours, you
7:23
know, I'm not even being funny. Like after the fact specifically
7:28
was designed to 'cause we had, we were having these
7:31
conversations anyway, like it started with me and my friend
7:35
Brian and this dude Hector. And we had this awesome
7:39
conversation after we did, I think it was a Lana Del Rey
7:43
episode. And we just had this really
7:45
great conversation. And Brian and I both look at
7:48
each other like, why didn't we record that?
7:50
Like that's a pod in it in and of itself.
7:54
And so this kind of start becoming a thing where it's like
7:57
I'm having these conversations with my friends anyway.
8:00
I mean, I might as well utilize it as content like so people can
8:04
hear. I, I got cool friends like I, I
8:06
like conversing with my friends. So.
8:09
So don't. Don't you put that on me, Mr.
8:11
Will. You did it for the rock.
8:14
You did it for the. People oh shoot Natural Trade
8:20
off did did I see yeah did I see that there's like a a wrestling
8:25
theme record coming out ran. There is a a friend of mine,
8:32
Tory Masters, who is putting out a wrestling themed record.
8:35
OK, so again. Called Winning Wars Everyday WWE
8:40
and I've been helping them put it together and mix and master
8:44
it. So it's going to release on my
8:46
record label Random Beats in about two weeks and I'm featured
8:50
on it as well as some other friends.
8:52
Look at you. That's awesome.
8:54
That's a good deal. Yeah.
8:56
I again, this is one of those things where I like.
8:58
I don't know, maybe you boys should learn how to read.
9:00
And let's segue again. You are an author.
9:05
I am, yes. I just finished my first book,
9:08
Dream Master Memoir just came out top of the year.
9:12
You can get it wherever you get fine books, Amazon or wherever
9:17
else or Dream masterbook.com. It is the story of my life.
9:21
Just all the cool things that have happened or not so cool
9:23
things that have inspired me to kind of become who I am.
9:27
And there's a great chapter on Doom and how how much Doom was,
9:31
you know, a big inspiration for me coming up.
9:36
I just, that has to be something that was always kind of like
9:40
right there because I feel like there's, I know for a fact
9:44
there's a track on black materia, but I feel like you,
9:49
you do a track where you're just kind of like spilling out your
9:51
life anyway. So like it was always right
9:53
there. You just might as well put the
9:54
pen to paper. Is that kind of how that
9:56
happened? Oh yeah, totally it.
9:58
It definitely falls in line with what happens at the end of the
10:01
Black Material album, where I do this kind of biographical piece.
10:06
And yeah, I just had a lot of stories like that that I just
10:08
wanted to get out. So it started as a podcast.
10:11
I would do like 10-15 minutes on this podcast I have on random
10:15
encounters where I would just tell a brief story about my
10:17
life. And I really enjoyed telling
10:19
these stories and people were really getting something from
10:21
it. So I had a ton of them.
10:24
So I'm like, well, let's just flesh these out a little bit
10:26
and, you know, write a book. And the rest is history.
10:32
Here we are. So we're going to bounce these
10:36
lists or this list off you and feel free to like embellish,
10:40
like if there's a story behind the song that you feel like you,
10:42
you know, might, you know, somebody might want to hear or,
10:46
or whatever, but. Just whatever I have to ask
10:49
first of all, sure. I mean, just knowing how you,
10:52
you know, put together the doom list that we had to choose from,
10:56
were there any albums that you maybe didn't count for whatever
11:01
reason? Because like, I have a lot of
11:02
records, so there's no way even like in a good amount of a short
11:08
amount of time you could get through them.
11:10
So did you just pick maybe OK, here's 5 albums and then we
11:13
we're going to go through them? Or like how did you come up with
11:17
the list to choose from? What did what did we do Jodi?
11:20
Like I think it was like 8 right?
11:22
We did the 2 Mega Man records. We did black material of course,
11:29
extra credit the visitor. What am I missing?
11:33
Random. Yes, random, yes, random as
11:35
well. I want to.
11:37
I don't. I didn't count.
11:39
OK, so it was 6. I think we just kind of we
11:43
looked at because initially I had all of it and I looked at it
11:46
and I was like, man, I'd love to cover all this, but at the time
11:50
it was a four person panel, which is already hard enough no
11:54
matter how many songs you have. I was like, we need to we need
11:58
to trim something and I don't you know, like you just kind of
12:02
you kind of guess at what is going to be needed here.
12:06
You know what I mean? Again, you weren't new to me,
12:09
but I never did the dive past Black Materia, you know, other
12:14
other than a couple, like singles would come out and you
12:17
know, you'd post a video and and I'd watch the video like I
12:20
never, I never did the deep dive on the records, which again,
12:25
like we talked about on doom like, although I guess for you,
12:29
band camp was there and I guess I'm showing my ass here a little
12:33
bit. I could have just gone to band
12:34
camp and bought them, but that's a story for a different day.
12:38
No, but that's a lot. So I understand.
12:40
I would have said if you're going to pick six, you know, I
12:43
probably would have said a different 6, but just because I
12:46
feel like, OK, Mega Ran and Mega Ran 9 are similar, you know, in
12:52
theme and in composition. So I would say, OK, pick one of
12:57
those and then go into maybe something that isn't necessarily
13:00
a video game tribute album or one that is, but it's just
13:05
different, like a forever Famicom, you know, for example.
13:07
So I would have said like go with one of the Mega rains, the
13:10
forever Famicom. And then I like the rest of the
13:13
the choices though, so I'm curious to see what you guys
13:16
came up with. So, but on that, like, I think
13:18
you just stumbled onto something.
13:19
I I think whenever I'm in a dilemma like that, I'm going to
13:22
reach out to the artist and be like, you know, not everybody's
13:25
going to be accessible and go, yeah, sure, here, this is what
13:28
you should cover. But I think like, if I reached
13:32
out to the artist and was like, hey, like we're going to do this
13:34
episode on you, what should we cover?
13:38
You know, then people can't be mad at me, you know?
13:42
Or I mean like or like with the doom thing, I not, I don't want
13:46
to knock your, your, your, your method on selection, but I think
13:51
if you Google best MF Doom album, Mad Villainy would have
13:55
came up. Yeah, You know, so, so for that,
13:59
you know, I feel like maybe you can go through like the ratings,
14:01
like whatever they've been rated or, you know, rather than
14:05
searching on say, Spotify, which may not have everyone's whole
14:08
catalog and definitely doesn't have a rating system.
14:11
So it's just whatever gets played the most.
14:13
Also true. And, and yeah, maybe, but I
14:17
guess since since we're here in the conversation, like one of
14:21
the big things I've been trying to do this year is get ahead
14:25
because there's, it sounds silly to say that there's a lot of
14:28
work when it comes to this show because I don't do any editing.
14:32
Like the show kind of comes out as it is pretty much.
14:35
But that's mostly because almost every week I'm cramming most of
14:41
the time at least 6 records into my Dome that I have to like spew
14:46
out like within a week. So like this year I've been very
14:52
aggressive. Like let's see, what did I say
14:55
earlier? Like Doom is now I'm 8 episodes
14:59
ahead, so I'm in the March and I can go back to doing one a week
15:05
now because I don't I have I, I'm two months ahead.
15:10
Like I don't have, I don't have to grind like that.
15:13
And I feel like I can give some love, better love to the artist
15:17
that way. And I feel like I can do like
15:19
you were saying I can, I can actually do some research and
15:22
go, OK, well, I think we should include this, you know, some
15:26
sometimes I just ask the panel because they're usually bigger,
15:30
bigger fans of the the band than I am.
15:33
And I'm like, well, what do you guys think we should include?
15:35
And if they come up to a consensus, then that's what we
15:40
use. But like with doom, I was just
15:43
kind of going here. This is this is what's
15:46
available. So, all right, so our number one
15:51
with a bullet was church. Hey, all right, I'm not mad at
16:00
that. I love that song.
16:01
I think we couldn't, we couldn't get away from like just how hard
16:05
it hits. Like I, I feel like it was a
16:07
nice cross section of what you do.
16:10
It's got obviously the video game reference, but it also it,
16:16
it, it hits hard like it's it is a great track.
16:21
Yeah, that's that's probably this song I've been trying to
16:24
create for years, you know, and it started off as me kind of
16:28
goofing around on Patreon. And then I had a really, really
16:33
good track together. And I was like, OK, I think this
16:36
is it. And but it was it was really
16:40
short. So, you know, I don't want to do
16:42
it necessarily. MF Doom style just had me just
16:44
rapping. So I was like, well, let's let's
16:46
add a chorus. Let's get another rapper extend
16:49
this moment a little bit because I love this beat.
16:51
Like, it's probably my favorite beat I've ever heard.
16:54
And so it got me so excited. So I was like, I just got to
16:57
extend this moment. So it's a much longer verse for
17:00
me than I would normally write. And then Kadesh kills it as
17:04
well. Like that song goes over Super
17:06
Will Alive. So yeah, it's a banger.
17:10
So we weren't far off then, you know, judging by all right, so
17:15
we also had Aqua Soul. Hey, that's a great one.
17:20
I love the beat. I love storytelling.
17:24
Another story of lost love it is.
17:29
I gave a reference a nod to The Roots, but the first couple of
17:33
lines in the Rep and yeah, that's my jam.
17:38
Then we had Avalanche. Yeah, right.
17:41
The banger goes over well. Live just place explodes when I
17:47
play it, so yeah, gotta play that one.
17:50
I love, I love like, so you're halfway through and then Barrett
17:54
comes out and it's like, you realize that oh wait, like these
18:00
are separate characters and here's, here's Barrett and I'm
18:04
going to embarrass myself because I, I always, I love the
18:07
unarmed line. I love that, like how you played
18:12
that. And then like, it's, it's
18:14
Barrett. Cause yeah, he never, he never
18:17
goes unarmed. No, I mean it literal 'cause I
18:19
got a gun arm. Like, come on, man, That's
18:23
great. That's a very Camron line.
18:27
If we're familiar with Camron's rhyme style, he's very good at
18:31
the the double triple entendre, saying the same thing multiple
18:35
times but meaning different things and and getting a chuckle
18:39
out of me. So I decided to have some fun
18:41
with that one. I love that one.
18:44
This one really put church for a for a run for its money at at #1
18:49
cry the planet. Alright, The Planet is another
18:53
favorite of mine. We did a remake version of it
18:57
that I maybe like better, but but that's a song that gets me
19:03
emotional every time. So it's, yeah, it's one of my
19:06
favorites. So on the remake version, I I
19:08
believe you kind of you took it with a lot of the stuff that's
19:13
kind of happened to us over the last four years, I think isn't
19:16
the first line. Like sometimes I I lay here and
19:19
I wonder if I've been dreaming the last four years or, or or
19:23
something. Yeah, something.
19:24
Like that. Yeah.
19:26
I feel like I died in 2016. Yeah.
19:28
And this is all the simulation. Maybe that's just extreme.
19:32
Yeah. So it's like, yeah, it just
19:34
takes me through those moments that I've.
19:36
I remember of 2016 and how I felt just like this.
19:39
This just can't be real. So when I say to people who
19:42
don't know Final Fantasy, I'm like, all right, black bacteria
19:45
is like imagine like Shinra is like the Trump administration,
19:50
except they're a lot more organized than Trump ever it's
19:52
been. But so imagine a role-playing
19:56
game that has you try to survive the four years of the Trump
20:00
administration. Oh God.
20:03
That's that's it. I'm, I'm saying like it, it is
20:06
bizarre. Like how, and that's why I cry
20:09
the planet, like even the original 1 always hit with me.
20:12
And then when I heard the remake, I was like, oh snap.
20:14
Like I, I think I agree with you.
20:16
I think I like the remake one a little bit better 'cause it it
20:20
really puts everything we've kind of gone through these last
20:24
couple years like right there in your face, like, you know,
20:28
they've been trying to tell you since 97 what might happen.
20:32
Yeah, absolutely. It's the one song on the album
20:36
that isn't specifically about the game.
20:38
You know, it's about like real life, like directly about real
20:41
life stuff. I feel like there's a lot of
20:43
crossover and you know, double meaning stuff throughout the
20:46
album, but that's the one that's like the most overt.
20:51
So I think I think kind of on that, on that vein is Dawn of
20:57
the Slums, which is was our next choice.
21:00
Hey, OK. I like that one a lot too.
21:04
You didn't put that on the remake because we had some weird
21:07
issues with sound quality and it just wasn't holding up as well
21:11
as the rest of them. And I didn't think if it wasn't
21:13
going to be better than the original, it's like, right, we
21:15
can't, we don't need to remake it.
21:17
But yeah, that that one's another one.
21:20
I think in my verse I say a lot of things that are about being
21:24
in the slums in the game, but also being in the slums in real
21:26
life. You know.
21:28
So yeah, like being able to tie it into to real life was was
21:33
like a must. So that's one of my favorite
21:35
ones. And it just hits, man, like it
21:37
happens all the time in the slump it like I find myself
21:41
walking through the house just singing, singing that part.
21:45
And like I'm so it has that tie to Don Cornello, like how filthy
21:50
he is. And like you think about like
21:52
Sector 6 and just how gross the wall market is and like, yeah,
21:59
man, like that, that tie to, to real life, like I, I feel like
22:04
we did pretty good here. So, yeah, yeah.
22:07
These are. All good ones.
22:09
Then we had eyes on your own paper.
22:15
OK, OK, I really like that one that's the collaboration I've
22:19
been trying to make happen forever.
22:21
It's a live one of my favorite rappers also used to be a
22:24
teacher beats by Dibiase, but one of the original like beat
22:30
scene LA guys who kind of started off flipping 8 bit
22:33
samples and doing a lot of stuff that led to what I was doing and
22:38
we just finally got together made a track.
22:42
I thought the I thought the lyrics were great.
22:45
I love the J Lobsters like comparisons, the Thief of Joy
22:49
and all these other really great things that I'm like taking
22:52
notes on when he says them. So yeah, that's, that's a good
22:56
one. Good pick.
22:57
I feel like it kind of slept on track in my catalog so.
23:00
Good one. And what I'll say is that one
23:03
was unanimous. Like I think we, what was it?
23:05
We had three, Yeah, three. We had three unanimous eyes on
23:08
your, on your own paper. Was one of them Nice?
23:12
Yeah. Church and Dawn of the Slums
23:14
with the other two. Yep.
23:15
Yep. The the fact that DB has to
23:18
produce that just blew my mind a little bit.
23:22
Wow it. It makes sense now, it makes all
23:26
the sense in the world, but Oh my gosh.
23:29
Yeah, he killed that. Then we had form school of Feng
23:32
Shui. Oh, another good one.
23:35
I love that beat that one is another slept on track, but I
23:45
play alive and get a good reaction though it's a lot of
23:49
crazy double meaning stuff that I don't know if everybody fully
23:53
gets. I'm talking about like
23:55
friendships and relationships and moving them around like
23:58
furniture and it sounds like a domestic dispute almost.
24:03
And but yeah, it's one of my favorites.
24:06
I, I felt like for a lot of extra credit, I wanted to be not
24:13
as on the nose as I'd been in the past with some of the things
24:17
I wanted to say. So I think I really tried my
24:21
best to where like every title and every concept on that has a
24:27
double meaning. Dig it, man.
24:32
Then we had grow up. Hey, Grow Up is the very first
24:39
Mega Man track I wrote, and that has been a melody that's been in
24:43
my head probably since I was 12. You know, didn't have the words
24:49
per SE, but just playing Mega Man, that's the Woodman theme.
24:53
And the best thing about that game is when you pause that, the
24:55
music would keep playing. So, you know, I'm going away to
24:59
get a sandwich or I'm taking the trash out.
25:01
And I could still hear the music.
25:02
And I used to just kind of throw extra words into it, like, I'm
25:09
going to make a sandwich and then I'm going to come back and
25:13
play, you know? So I would just come up with
25:15
these words. And so that when I first
25:17
started, you know, sampling Mega Man stuff and making beats, I
25:21
was like a must. I was like, I got to do this
25:22
one. And that was the first track I
25:25
recorded. Up next we got Mako Reactor.
25:30
A right that's just a banger it's a but the beat is
25:34
incredible the original sample, the track, it might be my
25:38
favorite track from the from the soundtrack of Final Fantasy 7.
25:41
It just feels ominous, big, scary, you know, like you're on
25:47
a mission, you know, so. And what's the?
25:49
Mission that track destroy the Mako reactor.
25:53
That's right. But at the same time, like it's
25:58
it's such a story driven track that it's like, if you don't
26:01
know this game, I feel like you're not even going to know
26:03
what I'm talking about or have any idea.
26:05
But I try my best to make sure I describe it the best I could and
26:10
it ends like at a moment before another thing happens.
26:13
So it's like it's it's what do they call that?
26:17
I guess it's more like AB side, you know, or like a, an album
26:20
cut in that it's, it doesn't tell the entire story, but I, I
26:26
love the story. I love the track.
26:29
It's it's a top, top 10 for me for sure.
26:32
What I told my wife at one point I was, I was listening to the
26:36
album like on a road trip or something, and I was like,
26:40
'cause she's never played Final Fantasy 7.
26:42
And it's been like a thing in my life forever.
26:46
Like, you know, it's, it's been a presence.
26:49
And so, like, I was listening to this and I was like, you know
26:52
what, Hon? In all honesty, if you want,
26:55
I'll turn this up. And if you just listen to the
26:57
lyrics, you don't really need to play like he's telling you the
27:00
story. Like, it's one of the reasons I
27:03
love black material so much is the fact that if you haven't
27:06
played, you get the story. You just have to pay attention.
27:11
So yeah. So.
27:15
And then #10 was Robot City. Oh.
27:19
Great beat TM 3 kill that beat the original, not the remix,
27:27
doesn't matter, but really great beat fun concept.
27:35
I love that track a lot. It's it was like a bucket list
27:39
moment for me to be able to work with Whitey Cracker on that song
27:43
because Whitey Cracker was the first person I ever heard
27:46
rapping on Mega Man beats. He made it.
27:48
He made an album called NES Nerd Court Nerd Rap Entertainment
27:52
System. And on the front, it's him, you
27:55
know, with a Nintendo box, like Photoshopped.
27:58
And he has a song in there called Mega Nerd.
28:01
And that was the first time I'd heard someone rap on the Mega
28:04
Man 3 theme. And I was like, this is dope.
28:06
And it was like the anthem of a nerd.
28:08
You know, he's like, this is the life of a Mega nerd baby.
28:12
You know, just talk about how like nerds run the world and
28:14
it's OK to be a nerd. And we're we're we're cool now.
28:18
And so I knew if I did this album, I had to get him on it.
28:22
And thank goodness he responded and and got down.
28:25
So yeah. It's a big one.
28:28
So that that's the 10 and I I don't want to keep you much
28:31
longer, but there there are a couple things.
28:33
So you mentioned the mocha reactor, like that's there's a a
28:39
slums song in the remake. It appears.
28:42
Shoot, I think it's when you're travelling through like some of
28:45
the side quests on Sector 5. The best I can do is hum it do
28:51
do no doom. Boom boom, Yeah.
28:59
We had that for a gosh, a friend of mine did a a low fi Final
29:06
Fantasy 7 remix album and I helped him put that out and he
29:10
has a track for that one too. That's tons of it.
29:14
It's really dope. And then one.
29:17
So I guess rather than a question then depending on your
29:21
answer, I'll I'm going to bounce another one off you, is there?
29:24
I just got a question. OK.
29:26
Sure, I know you don't have to get into the next 10, but like I
29:31
hope, I mean, it's it's like, where's infinite lives?
29:34
Is that on there? IOP, Where's the meeting?
29:37
Where's like some of my favorite jams haven't come up yet.
29:40
Yo, so that was our test. They hit, they hit the floor
29:43
when apparently people other than me didn't have.
29:47
Now I didn't. Yo, hey, Jody.
29:50
Bus tires hurt, man. I will say this, I had infinite
29:56
lives. I had that one and nobody else
30:00
did. I did not.
30:02
OK, I'll throw some people under the bus.
30:05
Favorite song? I mean, I think the I haven't
30:08
heard anything in the random album and I think that's like a
30:10
lot of my best stuff, so I'm a little surprised.
30:13
OK, so I so I'm going to jump out in front of the bus this
30:16
time. And Random was my favorite
30:18
project. God damn it.
30:21
Yeah, no, favorite song was was incredible.
30:26
Alternate endings was probably my favorite song because as
30:32
someone who was very involved in in hip hop culture, but like,
30:38
you know, chose to go another route instead of like pursuing
30:42
it for like a, you know, for anything else but like a hobby
30:46
and an escape. Like, it makes sense because I
30:50
know like, a lot of lawyers and doctors and people that we all
30:52
hang out with and kick it at shows, and they're all really
30:56
talented. They can all rap and make beats
30:57
and do all this great stuff. But it's like, you know,
31:00
sometimes there's more than just that.
31:02
Which is really? Yeah.
31:05
Ultimate Endings is a favorite of mine too.
31:08
I think, I think ultimately, like I said, we all kind of
31:11
found our corners of your discography and we had trouble
31:15
finding each other. So I mean.
31:17
That's fair. I understand that.
31:19
Because it's like, especially when like there's an entire
31:21
album about Final Fantasy and if someone else hasn't played it,
31:24
then they're like, you know, so I get it.
31:27
And then if there's more stuff that skews towards a more
31:30
traditional hip hop side when you know, someone's not
31:32
necessarily a big fan of that, I can understand it.
31:35
So trying to meet in the middle of a lot of different sides of
31:39
me couldn't be easy. I, you know, I think, I think
31:44
ultimately and the episode will hit April first.
31:48
I, I think if I have my time incorrectly, but I, I think we,
31:54
we were very agreeable. I, I, I think the thing that was
31:57
hurting was, was the fact that, you know, we would throw
32:01
something out and it'd be like, we had a couple of moments like
32:04
that on doom where it's like man, like that one was like
32:07
2223. Like those moments of it was
32:10
close. Like that was on my list, like
32:13
man, like and your discography, or at least at least the
32:18
discography we included was tough to pick from.
32:22
I, I'm so happy we got to cover you though, because not to say
32:27
that you're, you're slept on, but I do feel like, I do feel
32:32
like more people should know who you are.
32:34
I, I, I think that you're very gifted storyteller and I think
32:39
that to me, as you know, 40 year old boy dude in Virginia,
32:46
whatever, whatever my opinion means that that's what hip hop,
32:51
what great hip hop is is is is really great storytelling.
32:55
So yeah, take take that for for whatever it means.
32:59
I. Appreciate that.
33:00
You know, I'm a big fan of storytelling too, and I do think
33:03
that that is my my kind of, you know, strong point and I try to
33:07
make sure that I'm given some quality storytelling throughout
33:11
these records. So thank you you.
33:15
Definitely are, man. Like it's like I'm a I'm a fan
33:18
now. Like like you were on my radar.
33:21
I think I heard you on the On the New Day podcast.
33:24
How nice. And I was like, OK, cool.
33:27
And then I think Ryze had just dropped like, recently.
33:31
And I was like, and I was like, oh, yo, he's ridiculously nice.
33:35
And then when, when Justin gave us the opportunity, I was like,
33:38
OK, cool. Well, you know, I run the
33:40
catalog and like, I am a huge, like I'm, I'm a fan.
33:45
Like even from regardless of your, your like subject matter,
33:52
like even as an MC, like you're ridiculous, bro.
33:54
Like it's you're great. Thank you very much.
33:59
See a nice little mega ran love fest.
34:02
No, I I appreciate that I'm always here for a mega ran love
34:07
fest. So I, I was wondering if there's
34:12
any, any beats out there like as far as cause again, you, you
34:17
tackled Final Fantasy 7, you tackled the, the remake, you've
34:21
tackled Mega Man games. Is there another kind of like
34:26
Love Fet or even just maybe just one singular video game beat
34:32
that's kind of like just been haunting you?
34:33
You're like, man, I want to make it work and I just haven't been
34:35
able to. I've been thinking about some
34:39
stuff with a we're trying to get a Metal Gear Solid, the kind of
34:44
work, and it hasn't really happened.
34:47
So I think for me though, there's a certain charm in the
34:51
older like 8 bit, 16 bit stuff where I can add my own
34:55
instrumentation, I can do what I need to do as music starts
34:59
getting into the CDH, you know, where it's more orchestral and
35:03
you know, and licensed music, it it to me lose a little bit of
35:07
the charm of being able to really sample it and mess with
35:11
it. But but I discover new stuff
35:13
everyday. Man, I've been doing this
35:14
freestyle series the last five weeks and I just found a game
35:19
called Power Blade for the Nintendo that has amazing music.
35:23
So like, like just just like so many good games out there that I
35:27
just never played. So I'm just going to need to go
35:31
dig up on a bunch of things. I have, I always wanted like
35:37
little known fact about me. I dipped my toes in hip hop like
35:42
I I can't call myself, obviously I can't call myself an artist,
35:46
but we did the hijackers and we would just Jack whatever beats
35:52
and rap over them. And at one point I was trying
35:56
like hell to make the velt from Final Fantasy.
36:00
I call it three. I don't care.
36:02
Like, you know, some people want to call it 6.
36:05
I call it three. I'm American.
36:08
Give me a break. But the velt from from three.
36:11
I always thought there there was something to that one to.
36:14
That that I've been using for live live stream shows.
36:18
So if you catch any of our live shows, myself, MC Fun a lot day
36:22
for the Dark Lord, we're called the Four Eyed Horsemen.
36:25
We do live shows once a month. Our next one is February the
36:29
27th. And so during those shows, I
36:33
usually pull that out for freestyle.
36:35
Nice, I always loved that one. I always I always thought it was
36:38
ripped for for just that. Oh yeah, totally.
36:43
It's it's perfect for it. Well, I I don't want to hog up
36:47
any of your time, but like the you know, will will opened up a
36:50
little bit. But Jodie, like I know you said,
36:54
you're just, you know, spectating, but.
36:58
Well, I mean, I, I guess just to go to the idea that, you know,
37:06
maybe you're not not as well known as some of us think you
37:10
should be. I didn't know about you until
37:13
about 2012. A Co worker at the time was a
37:16
big Mega Man fan, turned me on to you.
37:19
And I didn't really follow much past black material up until
37:26
we're doing this. And at the time I thought it was
37:29
a little weird that I didn't know about you because of when I
37:34
heard robot City and like I was already at that time already a
37:38
fan of Whitey cracker. I'm like, OK, that's weird.
37:41
How how do I not know about you? And then I'm going through your
37:45
later stuff and I'm like listening to the visitor and get
37:50
to for the gamers. I'm like, shit, that's an 80.
37:54
How the hell do I not know about you?
37:55
How do I not know about this? And it, it just, it's
37:59
interesting because for me, most of outside of like mid early to
38:06
mid 80s and a little bit of early 90s to hip hop, most of
38:09
the stuff that I listen to is nerd core stuff.
38:13
And yet somehow for the most part, you kind of slip past me.
38:18
And I feel bad about that. But it's like you kind of cross
38:23
paths with so many of the artists that I listen to, but
38:26
somehow just never really came across you out.
38:29
Like outside of that one guy I used to work with, that's how I
38:32
even knew about you at all. Things like that happen, so it's
38:37
possible. It is.
38:40
But yeah, we've we've man, we've done so many shows together.
38:42
We tour together all the time. We've topped up with each
38:46
other's releases and things. So it was just a matter of time.
38:52
Yeah, here we are. Here we are in the middle of the
38:57
Mega Rand love fest. But again, I don't, I don't want
38:59
to keep keep everybody here all night.
39:02
So what I'm going to do here is press the spacebar.