JT Music is a nerdcore hip-hop group formed by artists Christian Ames and John Gelardi in December 2008. With 10 years of experience under their belt, JT Music’s creative lyrics and impressive rap skills have made them leaders in the Nerdcore genre, setting the standard for all Nerdcore hip-hop artists. Every Saturday at 12 pm EST, JT Music posts a music video on YouTube based on video games, often in the form of rap battles between video game characters. These are some of the most intelligent and nerdiest rappers you’ll ever hear. Good beats and grooves with lines that are dripping with intelligence, humor and fun. One of their latest tunes, “Detroit: Become Human Rap”, is a brilliant, poignant, and timely lyrical story dealing with the interpretation of robot mythology from the adventure game developed by Quantic Dream and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment during May 2018.
JT Music deal with the game’s topics, such as slavery, the human condition and the concept of identity, rather brilliantly. And put together with the atmospheric and mood inducing instrumental, the track is almost more emotional than the game itself. Throughout the game, you alternate between playing as three different androids, all of whom are dealing with “deviancy” (the term used to describe woke androids) in their separate ways.
As more androids begin to become deviants, the narrative scope expands from these smaller domestic dramas to become an epic political thriller and rebellion narrative that brings the entire country to the brink of a civil war.
Christian Ames and John Gelardi brilliantly takes us through the motions, and emotions, of these thematics, as they open the track rapping: “Eyes open wide, I am not awake / Far from alive, a robotic slave / Chained up in bondage, they locked the cage / Walls up around me, and none will break / Give me a number and then a name / This is my duty – listen, obey.”
This is possibly JT Music best track yet. And probably their most important. It paints a picture of an all too probable future where we remain complacent and allow our rights to be stripped away by government agencies.
If you’re a geek and you like hip hop, there’s nothing finer than Nerdcore soundtracks to accompany your daily achievements, and no one will get you closer to that genre than JT Music. There is some Nerdcore music that is good, and there is some that is pure garbage, as well a level that is completely sublime.
JT Music belong to the latter category. The production quality of “Detroit: Become Human Rap” is far, far better than one would expect. The beat is thumping and compelling, the melody all-embracing and catchy, and the rhyming is downright brilliant. JT Music has managed to regenerate the art form for a new, more demanding audience, while still paying homage to the original.
I seriously don’t know if Nerdcore is big enough to hold these guys inside it for much longer!