We recently connected with MC Zappa and have shared our conversation below.

MC, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Hmm. For me, it’s a tossup. I would split the answer to that question into two categories: “Past” and “Present”. As far as “Past”, I would say that the most meaningful project I’ve ever worked on is my 2021 instrumental album “Do You Mind?!”. It’s a multi-layered project with more lore behind it than people realize. See, I started working on that album in 2021, which wasn’t really a good year for me at all. I was dealing with my second year of independent adulthood, my last year of school, two stressful low-paying jobs, severe loneliness, social isolation in a new city, the aftermath of a severe head injury two years prior, and severe mental health issues, all at once. And mind you, this was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, I had little to no healthy coping mechanisms. So when things got too much for me to handle, I self-harmed, inappropriately overshared, and made music.

One of the few joys I had was talking to my online friends and colleagues in the Hip-Hop community. We would talk about music, whether it was our favorite heroes, the gear we liked to use, the albums we wanted to put out, etc. Sometimes we would just talk about life and the pressures of being a young American twentysomething. In any case, my Hip-Hop little brother, N0lem, and my friend/bae Zenati from London, both put me onto a lot of music, which of course enhanced my artistic capacity by broadening my horizons. But Zenati in particular inspired me a lot. This cat’s artistic output was like no other I’d seen before. Granted, he made instrumentals and therefore wasn’t encumbered by the lyricism process, but still. I mean we’re talking like ten albums per year. The consistency made me want to step up my own game (no pun intended) Moreover, we would stay on video call all night and he would send me joints by producers like Madlib and J Dilla, when we weren’t previewing beats for each other.

So eventually, all of this eventually coalesced into an idea: “Why don’t I do an all-instrumental Bit-Hop album?”
And so I did. I already had a few random ideas for beats (“Your Fault” was the first one to be completed), and the rest just came to me. You can tell a lot about what kind of media I was copiously consuming during that time period, because it manifests all over the album as samples. Beyond Scared Straight, Chappelle’s Show, Everybody Hates Chris, and random internet memes: there wasn’t a single piece of dialogue that i couldn’t use to tell my stories. This album is really personal to me in a way that my others aren’t necessarily, because sometimes when you let the beat speak for itself, it says more than 3 16s ever can. In any case, there are some tracks on there that directly speak to my state of mind (no pun intended) at the time. I’d like to think you can feel my pain and melancholy vibrating all through “Apathy”. But above all, the primary thing is that around this time, I was trapped in my own mind, be it for better or for worse. This is, in part, why the album is called “Do You Mind?!”. And also, not many people know, but as I see it, this album has an optional plot. You can either see it as a young woman and her husband arguing, making up, being sieged and getting into a deadly shootout with the IRS then going to the mall, or you can see it as 13 random instrumentals. It’s really up to you.

As far as “Present”, the most meaningful project I’ve ever worked on is “Critical Times”, my next studio album. I am developing it alongside “Legend Of Zappa”, which was supposed to be my sophomore album, a direct sequel to “It’s All A Game”, with a release date of 2019, but life had other plans.

“Critical Times” is extremely meaningful to me because it is a direct result of my coming to find God. For years prior, I had been involved in all manner of blasphemy, idolatry, witchcraft, sexual immorality and general hedonism. For all the respect and renown I had gained with my success in music, I viewed my life as completely meaningless, a cosmic fluke. I suffered constantly, while not even knowing why I was suffering. I was as a senseless beast, spiritually dead, and I firmly believe that had God not intervened and personally called me, physical death was not far behind. In any case, I started studying my Bible and developing a personal relationship with Christ in 2023. And just as it is written, I have been “transformed by the renewal of my mind”, which has changed my entire worldview and outlook on life. Naturally, I felt compelled to express these thoughts and experiences through music. Even the title of the album, “Critical Times”, is taken from the beginning of 2nd Timothy, Chapter 3, which accurately prophecies the condition of the world in the end times (“But know this, that in the last days, critical times hard to deal with will be here…”)

This album is highly unusual because it is 1) the easiest project I’ve ever put together (the ideas just flow back-to-back like water without me having to even put much thought into them; the project is roughly 75% complete) and 2) the most collaborative project I’ve ever done. It is truly amazing, and a mark of God’s blessing, how my friends and family from all over the country have all contributed to the making of this album, whether it be my brother Hakeem from Pasadena, CA contributing narration and piano, or my brother N0lem in FL contributing drum programming and turntablism. Also massive shouts to my Auntie Molly, my spiritual mother; you can hear her voice all over the album. In any case, never before have I had so much help with a project. I am wholly convinced that this album is well equipped for its purpose: to help people understand the past, present and future. I want to help people understand why the world is the way it is, and warn them of what’s coming; specifically, the imminent return of Jesus Christ as a Ruler and Judge, and the end of this age. I want to point people towards God and Christ by use of my own personal testimony, combined with my observations, by use of my signature Bit-Hop sound and thought-provoking lyrics.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is MC Zappa, and I’m the creator of Bit-Hop, a subgenre fusing golden age hip hop with 8-bit video game music. I am also a filmmaker. But when all’s said and done, really, I’m just a nerd from Atlanta.

Music has always been a significant part of my everyday life ever since I can remember, in large part because of my mother. She always sang and played music around the house, be it dancehall, house music, golden age hip-hop, funk or soul. In fact, sometimes people tease me because I have “a song for everything”; any random word or phrase you say to me, there is an excellent chance that I will respond with an appropriate song lyric. I always tell people, “blame it on my mother!”; it’s genetic! One of my earliest and most cherished memories is me receiving an mp3 player as a birthday present as a young child, which my mom preloaded with Michael Jackson’s greatest hits. Also, I loved video games, and at the time, the concept of video game music soundtracks being commercially available for casual listening on places like Apple Music was unheard of, so I would go on YouTube, play my favorite VGM, and record it into my little mp3 player. This habit of mine was met with a combination of amusement, bewilderment and mockery: it was not uncommon for me to hear some variant of “why do you listen to that stuff all the time? It’s not even real music!”

In any case, I started making my own music after my mom rented “Straight Outta Compton” for us on Redbox in 2016. I was fascinated by the story of these young cats from the hood, the story they had to tell, and the hell they went through to get their music recorded. I said to myself “that looks fun, I wanna try it”. So I started writing my own lyrics and making my own rudimentary beats using an app on a tablet that a family friend had given me. And they sucked. God knows they sucked, but over time, I honed my craft by learning from my mistakes, studying the old masters and surrounding myself with musicians who were more experienced than me. I scraped up money to buy a used MacBook, a great-uncle installed Logic Pro X on it, my grandfather bought me a set of two turntables and a mixer, and my mother, my beloved mother, the real MVP, graciously gave me her old equipment: a pair of headphones, an ALESIS IO2 audio interface, and a Yamaha PSR-E243 keyboard. With that, I had the beginning of what I call “The System”—a complex eclectic network of technology that I use to produce my music—and was ready to start creating in earnest. On December 20th, 2017, I dropped my debut single “The Beast Named October”, a single from my then-upcoming debut LP “It’s All A Game”, and the rest was history.

I didn’t know it at the time, but my filmmaking journey started in mid-August of 2023. Earlier that year, I had bought a cheap digital camcorder with the intent of using it to shoot videos for my cooking channel (I have always deeply loved the culinary arts), but at some point I got the bright idea to film a music video for my 2021 anti-police brutality song “Call The Law”. I did so, having no experience whatsoever with directing or filmmaking. Then, the following year, I decided to film another video, this time. noting the mistakes I made with the “Call The Law” video, and using analog tech (specifically, the Sony CCD-TRV65 camcorder)

Then later on in 2024, I looked back at these two videos and thought that while they were nice, they could be better—but how? This single question led me down a deep, deep rabbit hole of Super 8, 16mm, cinematography, storytelling and screenwriting. In late August of 2025, I shot my first short film on Super 8 (a faith-based drama called “Lawless”) with my sister Taisha, and I am currently shooting a PSA series called “Get Right”, which is intended to bring awareness to the impending end of the age, and the imminent return of Christ to judge all the Earth. I am also writing screenplays for my faith-based drama anthology series called “Word On The Street”. Ironically, despite all this, I still haven’t shot another music video yet. Although this turn of events came as a surprise to me, in hindsight (no pun intended), it probably shouldn’t have; one of many cherished mother-and-son traditions that my mother and I had was the watching of movies and TV shows together. We watched “Queen Sugar”, “Empire”, “The Get Down”, “Get On Up”, “In Time”, “Breaking Bad”, ‘The Sopranos”, “Airplane!”, “The Chi”, and many others. She took me to see pretty much all of the early MCU movies in theaters, which nurtured my love of Marvel. She lives a thousand miles away and although we still keep in regular contact, I miss my mother terribly.

I don’t want to say that I’m “proud” of anything per se because 1) my talents are not my own; they are on loan from God Almighty, and 2) pride goeth before a fall. Just as it is written, “what do you have that you have not received, and if you have received it, why boast as if you haven’t?”. However, I can state that I am *grateful* for several things. I am grateful to have had a chance to mentor and be an inspiration to some of my fellow artists (big up my little brother Ammon!!) . I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to create my own genre. I’m especially grateful to have worked with some of the OGs that I grew up listening to, and to have received props from DJ Kool Herc, the creator of hip-hop himself.

But ultimately, I am grateful to simply have a voice. Despite the fire that inhabits me when I rhyme, offstage I am a meek, low-key type of person. Since childhood, I have been marginalized, dismissed, ignored and talked over, even by those that should ostensibly share my plight in “The Struggle”. I guess this made me say within my soul “if they won’t listen to me on the street, then they will have to hearken to my voice when it’s over a Bit-Hop beat, and they won’t hearken then I will make them see, through the medium of film”.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

Yes. I would definitely say that I wish AI technology had been available when I had started out. Let me clarify exactly what I mean: separation programs that isolate drum tracks, vocal tracks, etc. from songs have been very helpful to me from a production standpoint, and there are ideas from the start of my career that I couldn’t execute back then due to the lack of such tools. Also, ChatGPT has been useful to me as far as the business/marketing side of things.

With that said, my position on AI tools for musicians is this: I see no artistic corruption in using AI tools for basic yet uncommon functions such as upscaling, instrument isolation, etc. However, when you have people using generative AI in order to write and “perform” all the lyrics, as well as be the “backing band”, I have a huge problem with that. The arts, such as writing, music, filmmaking etc., in my opinion, are a large part of our humanity. There’s a reason you hear birds singing, but only humans writing songs. If a few button presses on a program is all that’s needed to create music (and I do use that word “create” very loosely), then what do we need musicians for? But then again, I realize that some people may have a vision but may not have the time nor the money to purchase instruments, learn how to play them, and go through the process of recording them. It is a nuanced situation, but I just don’t want us to get lazy, and I don’t want the joy and humanity of musicianship to be erased. AI is just like fire: a boon to mankind if properly used, but can easily burn us all if misused.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

This is going to sound counterintuitive and perhaps a little mean-spirited, but it’s gotta be said: stop supporting corny niggas.

Over the years, music production equipment has become cheaper and cheaper, to the point where it’s no longer prohibitively expensive, and there is no barrier to entry. Heck, there are plenty of free beats and free online programs that people can record with, meaning that even the utterly destitute can accomplish their dreams of being a spitter. This is both a blessing and the greatest curse on hip-hop since the alleged 1991 meeting. The blessing is that now, in the wise words of the Teacha KRS-ONE, “anybody can, or should be able to rock off turntables, Grab the mic, plug it in and begin”. The curse, the awful curse, is that the eradication of the entry barrier has resulted in the proliferation of some of the most dogsh*t tracks known to man. Now granted, the entry barrier is only a small part of the problem; culture is the other part. No piece of art exists in a vacuum; either you’re actively redefining the status quo or you’re conforming to it, simple as.

To me, picking up the mic just to sound like the next man is completely foolish. Yes, I understand very well that aping your heroes is a developmental stage that all artists go through (heck, I did it myself for a time), but at some point you grow out of it. It’s like being 16 and still needing to use training wheels, when at that age you should be getting a learner’s permit. Instead, as far as I can see, in the mainstream, it’s not creativity or innovation that’s rewarded, but conformity. It irks me to no end because hip-hop, much like its twin brother punk rock, was built on rebellion, and now that the corporate devils have gotten hold of it, it has become the exact opposite of what it was intended to do. If everybody is rapping mumbled vocals about drugs, hoes and money over trap beats, then what’s the need in having a multitude of artists? If I’ve heard one, I’ve heard them all, no? Though there are a few modern tracks and artists that I do enjoy, for the most part I have no respect for this style of music, or the mindset that led to its proliferation. I call it “nigga music”. You think you’re a rebel because you rap about having lots of money, taking people’s lives, committing sexual immorality, and abusing substances? Get real! You’re playing right into the hands of Satan and his demons, cuz that’s who runs the world at the moment and those are exactly the things that he *wants* you to do. You really wanna be a rebel that badly? Let me hear you rap about giving justice to the widow and the orphan, denying yourself, resisting temptation, and seeking God’s righteousness and His Kingdom.

But what does this have to do with society supporting artists? One word: feedback. We’ve all been in a position before, at one time or another, where we didn’t want to hurt our friends’ or family’s feelings. But the fact is, though the truth hurts sometimes, it’s necessary. For goodness’ sake, don’t hype your homie up if you *know* his songs are trash. What you ought to do is lovingly encourage him to step up his game. Encourage him to find his own lane instead of aping the next man. Cuz when you have a copy of a copy, you’re left with what? A copy! Do you really want your artistic legacy to be summed up as “derivative”? You’re doing *yourself* an artistic disservice and selling your *own* self short. And stop gettin’ up here and lyin’! Don’t be tellin’ people you “bout that life” and that you grew up with nothing, knowing full well you grew up in a two-parent household in a gated community. If you feel you have to front on the mic, maybe you ought to go out and get some real life experiences instead of bitin’ your subject matter from the mainstream.

And another thing! While I firmly believe that wackness should be discouraged by the community, I have noticed that there are many people that have genuinely talented musician friends and won’t share or support their music, but will share and support a mainstream musician who don’t care nothin’ about them or the community, and will most likely never even know that they exist. This should not be so.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://realmczappa.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realmczappa/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realmczappa/
• Twitter: https://x.com/MC_Zappa
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmXBHjYP3BHYtznQ6Yt5Mfg
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/mc_zappa