MC Lars

MC Lars (real name: Andrew Nielsen) began making hip-hop-based tapes while still a kid, but was sidetracked from rap by such traditionally important issues (to teenagers) as playing guitar in a punk band and getting accepted to a college. Nielsen went to Stanford and then did an exchange stint at Oxford, but all the while he was fiddling with desktop productions and developing his quirky, pop-culture-savvy style. Boisterous live gigs and word of mouth built buzz for Lars' home-studio raps (influences: everything from <a href="spotify:artist:4I6LjrgKVERp2HF7y5LbkF">Atom & His Package</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:1bDWGdIC2hardyt55nlQgG">Weird Al Yankovic</a> to <a href="spotify:artist:2gINJ8xw86xawPyGvx1bla">KRS-One</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:03r4iKL2g2442PT9n2UKsx">the Beastie Boys</a>).

London imprint <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Truck+Records%22">Truck Records</a> issued a Lars full-length, Radio Pet Fencing, in 2003, and the MC followed that with U.S. and U.K. tour dates. While the entirety of Fencing was recorded on his computer, the 2004 EP Laptop -- while still charmingly simplistic -- was a comparatively grander production, with samples of notable rockers (<a href="spotify:artist:4rOGGTXaYygtFIHsPgLKJv">Piebald</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:168dgYui7ExaU612eooDF1">Brand New</a>) and a stronger melodic sense. Cuts like "iGeneration" and "Signing Emo" were hits with downloaders and mtvU viewers, and MC Lars did live dates with groups like <a href="spotify:artist:4IJczjB0fJ04gs4uvP0Fli">Gym Class Heroes</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:5ND0mGcL9SKSjWIjPd0xIb">Bowling for Soup</a> through spring 2005. The full-length The Graduate -- as MC Lars could hence call himself a Stanford alum -- appeared in March 2006.

In 2009, he collaborated with <a href="spotify:artist:1bDWGdIC2hardyt55nlQgG">Weird Al Yankovic</a> on "True Player for Real," a track from This Gigantic Robot Kills, and he was joined by <a href="spotify:artist:2gINJ8xw86xawPyGvx1bla">KRS-One</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:2E78kTKamtXgdRkK1jrc0f">Sage Francis</a> for Lars Attacks! in 2011. One year later, the Edgar Allan Poe EP dropped. Lars' 2015 project, The Zombie Dinosaur LP, was funded by Kickstarter and featured appearances from <a href="spotify:artist:3zFaWPA8Jobgf5egh38KD2">Kool Keith</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:3mJ9GlkLzj8Ka7Z7EQaCMi">Watsky</a>, among others; it reached Billboard's Heatseekers chart. Next came the 2016 mixtape Donald Trump Has Very Bad Morals and a 2017 EP, Revenge of the Nerd. ~ Johnny Loftus, Rovi