Chiptunes and Hip-Hop meet up with To Japan With Love, where Teacher/Rapper/Hero Mega Ran teams up with fellow hip-hoppers Doug Funnie and Mr. Miranda to drop a dedication to Japan. The trio visited Tokyo and Yokohama for a tour last month and came back inspired after taking in the culture for two weeks. “To Japan With Love” is produced by RANA, aka Tatsuya Kitahara of Tokyo, all on a single Nintendo Famicom and HFC4 chip, remixed and remastered for a release on We Are The Future! Records. Enjoy the new EP over a fresh hot bowl of ramen. Domo Arigatou!

iTunes: To Japan with Love – EP – Mega Ran, Doug Funnie & Mr. Miranda

If you put videogames, the 80s, hip-hop, soul music, jazz and standup comedy into a blender and hit “puree”, you’d have something close to The Mega Ran Experience. The Penn State graduate and self-proclaimed “Teacher/Rapper/Hero” made waves by combining 8-bit videogame sounds and hard-hitting hip-hop tracks, and has become a trailblazer in the budding genres of chiptune and nerdcore hip-hop, while maintaining a career as a middle school teacher. Retro videogames were the catalyst. Random began the transformation into Mega Ran, his alter-ego, an ode to the classic video game character Mega Man. After creating a tribute album and receiving an unprecedented level of support and blessing from Capcom to continue, Ran was reborn and became a trailblazer in the budding “nerdcore” and chiptune subgenres, while coining his own term to describe what he had done, “Chip-Hop.” Various video game developer co-signs and admiration from the genre’s toughest critics have led to placements in TV, movies, university coursework, and of course, games. Random’s music and story have been shared on stages across the world, on television (ABC/NBC News, ESPN, Portlandia, Tosh.O, WWE Wrestling) and in leading music, gaming and tech publications, print and online. Today, Random is no longer a teacher by title, but maintains a rigorous touring and recording schedule, traveling the world to entertain and educate through the gift of rhyme. With over 3 million YouTube views and a legion of smart art fans he calls “Team Mega” beside him, the future looks brighter than ever. Now that’s Random.

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