The first time rapper, comedian, voice actor and writer Christopher Ward — better known as MC Chris — performed in front of a live audience, he played the father in his Montessori school’s rendition of The Night Before Christmas, throwing up on his sash mid-performance.
Decades later, the high-pitched pioneer of the hip-hop subgenre nerdcore is marking his 20th anniversary of being on the road with his “20 Years of Touring” jaunt alongside Tampa-based nerdcore rapper Swell Rell. And the duo are coming to Orlando Friday.
Best known for his recurring role as MC P Pants on Adult Swim’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force, as well as serving as an animator and writer for the series, Ward has released over a dozen albums since he began performing in 2004, rapping about superheroes, Star Wars, video games and other aspects of “nerd culture.” Ward tells Orlando Weekly he was hesitant to accept the “nerd” label at the beginning of his career as he was coming up in New York’s punk rock scene.
“It was like my secret thing, so it was very weird to find out that there were a lot of people like me doing the same thing, and that there was a genre associated with it,” Ward says. “But these days, I don’t mind. I think it was just a matter of growing up and realizing you get labeled. And sometimes it’s hard to deal with labels of geek and nerd, but over the years, obviously, I’ve chilled out about it and it’s great to be considered at all.”
Worshiping the works of the Saturday Night Live cast and Mel Brooks in his “kind of strict” Catholic household growing up, Ward and his family’s sense of humor shaped his approach to his art. After he discovered rap around his freshman year of high school via a mixtape passed his way featuring De La Soul, Ward learned to rap while playing PC games in his basement and listening to A Tribe Called Quest.
“I think that really shaped me learning how to rhyme,” Ward says. “I was kind of Karate Kid in the sense that I was listening to rap constantly. I was playing games but I was also memorizing it.”
Combining his love of music and comedy, Ward’s discography is full of skits, which he says were inspired by Eminem and De La Soul.
When asked about his comparison of the complementary forces of comedy and rap to “chocolate and peanut butter,” Ward says, “I feel like no matter what kind of rap it is, a strong sense of humor and a sense of cleverness is really important. It’s what makes great rappers rise above the rest. I believe that it all comes down to just writing poems, basically, or songs, and it’s about how clever you can be with your songs.”
Even beyond the nearly 50-date tour and convention appearances spanning from June to December, this has been a particularly productive year for Ward. In February, the rapper started the “None of This Matters” podcast with his former Aqua Teen Hunger Force co-star Dana Snyder. Ward says the podcast — in which they rant about Disney, insider information on Aqua Teen Hunger Force, raising Ward’s 10-year-old son as a single father, and more — fell into place at a time when he needed it most, following his therapist’s resignation last fall.
“It’s been an amazing experience. It’s made me happier than anything I’ve worked on in a really long time. And I love that we can always keep the conversation going,” Ward says.
Following the end of his tour, Ward plans to take a much-needed break and focus on finishing two work-in-progress albums: King in Black and Underwater Wars. With two fully written series pilots in his back pocket, Ward hopes to take another screenwriting class after finishing an album. “I keep on writing in hopes that if that next chapter ever does arrive, I’m ready for it,” he says.
Reflecting back on his career, the now self-managed artist says a piece of advice he would give the 2004 MC Chris is to “get his hands dirty and figure out how everything works instead of just giving it to somebody else.” Ward hopes if there’s one mark he’s left behind on the genre, it’s that you can still be a good parent and a good professional.
“It’s really important to be who you really are. Don’t follow trends, create your own thing, and see what happens,” says Ward. “I think that’s how the best music happens, when you kind of have tunnel vision, or when it’s done in private, and then you reveal it to the world, and you end up connecting with more people than you could imagine.”
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This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 1, 2025.