Nerdcore hip hop is a musical genre. The name is derived from "nerd" and the "-core" suffix in genre names like "hardcore". The name was first used in 2000 by MC Frontalot, often considered the founder of the genre, in his song by the same name.
Nerdcore hip hop could reign supreme! - MC Frontalot, "Nerdcore Hiphop"
Besides Frontalot, other musicians who have described their music as "nerdcore" include:
2 Skinnee J's (especially on their album $upermercado)
The uniting feature of the genre is that it is hip hop by and for nerds. Common song themes include Star Wars (Frontalot's "Yellow Lasers", 2 Skinnee J's "Mind Trick", mc chris's "Fett's Vette"), science (most of MC Hawking's work, like "Entropy" and "E=MC Hawking", 2 Skinnee J's "Pluto"), and similar topics, but in truth the range is very wide. An emerging trend is for artists to focus on one particular topic; the Lords of the Rhymes, for example, confine themselves to the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. Nerdcore is often but not always released over the internet rather than through record labels.
Note that the 1999 song It's All About The Pentiums by "Weird Al" Yankovic, a parody of It's All About The Benjamins by P. Diddy, features use of Internet terminology with hip hop music. Though unintentional, it could be considered a predecessor of Nerdcore. However, "Weird Al" (though undoubtedly a nerd) is not generally considered nerdcore, because he parodies music of all genres rather than writing original hip hop.
Nerdcore hip hop, or geeksta rap, is a subgenre of hip hop music that is performed by nerds or geeks, and is characterized by themes and subject matter considered to be of general interest to nerds.
Self-described nerdcore musician MC Frontalot coined the term in 2000 in the song "Nerdcore Hiphop".
Very few nerdcore artists are particularly notable, because the only things required to enter the nerdcore community are a microphone, a computer, and a webserver.
While gangsta rap is seen as celebrating the violence and aggression that claimed two of its brightest stars, "geeksta" rap is a hip-hop genre celebrating coding skills and school grades.
Also dubbed "nerdcore," this branch of hip-hop is for geeks, by geeks.
Nerdcore fans, meanwhile, are happy to identify with a music that speaks their own language.
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