"Download This Song": MC Lars feat. Jared Reddick

MC Lars, hailing from Berkeley, California, is somewhat of an oddity - he's a rapper who thrives on using references to 18th-century Literature, Crunk Rap, Internet Relationships, and the term "iGeneration". He's not exactly Jay-Z in terms of flow, but he's doing things that no one else does as the father of the "Post-Punk Laptop Rap", creating entire albums (mostly his early work) using just his home computer. Early work of his sampled Brand New's "Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Doesn't" and Piebald's "American Hearts". As you'll see in this video, he samples Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" (he also samples Supergrass on his new album). The song is a battle cry of sorts regarding the state of the music industry, and how music is distributed - and how his method is part of the future. It also has Bowling for Soup's Jared Reddick on the hook, a nice bonus.

The "Download this Song" video, directed by Frank Borin, is simple enough - we follow a bunch of people around as they listen to MC Lars rap his song to the Iggy beat. In fact, all the people watching the video are doing so on non-television devices - a video iPod, a cellphone, a PSP, a computer, and so on - part of the movement in how the ways that music is promoted, distributed, and listened to is changing. One of the more clever moments in the video is the use of making fun of the iPod commercials, as you can see from the screencap.

All that aside - the video is clever and well done. MC Lars has worked with Borin before, on the video for "Signing Emo", and their obvious artistic connection has shown itself again in this video.

I actually had done an interview with MC Lars for this video, but in the last few days my computer has had a major meltdown (on the main hard drive - I still have my music), and I lost the interview, which really stinks. I had recorded the entire interview plus written it down, but the crash forced a lot of files to be corrupted.

Video (via Rapidshare): [iPod Compatible]

"Download This Song" - MC Lars feat. Jared Reddick
{Director: Frank Borin}