ADAM WARROCK

“I cut my salary, now I’m my own employer,” Memphis MC Adam WarRock rhymes at the close of “Shoulda Beens.” “If I was in it for the money I would have been a fucking lawyer.” His chosen niche is consciously nerdy hip-hop rich with references to Internet, graphic novel and video game culture, and he asserts several times on 2013 LP Middle of Nowhere that he’d bring in more than $20 a show if he, say, glorified violence in his rhymes. Yet rap has a respectable history of clever nerds, from Tribe Called Quest’s dweeby, shit-luck ode “8 Million Stories” to MF Doom’s King Geedorah alter ego (or, really, his entire catalog), and Adam WarRock’s assertions that “Magneto was right” continue this tradition nicely. (Corbie Hill)

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