DISTANT FUTURE MONTH #2: Deltron 3030, by Deltron 3030 (2000)

Type of Media: Music Album

People don’t usually associate hip-hop with geekery. That’s a mistake on their part, though, as hip-hop fans and artists are some of the biggest nerds on the planet. You don’t get to be a sick producer like the RZA unless you spend a lot of time experimenting with equipment, listening to records for samples, and cutting tracks, and you can bet that the best rappers do a lot of reading and writing. 

When you realize how many rappers make references to Dragon Ball Z or comic books (MF DOOM bases his entire rap persona on the villainous Doctor Doom, and Ghostface Killa sometimes goes by the name Tony Stark) a project like Deltron 3030 starts to make a lot more sense. Helmed by weirdo 90s alternative rapper Del tha Funkee Homosapien, with production by Dan the Automator and scratching by turntablist Kid Koala, Deltron 3030 takes hip-hop activism and braggadocio and couches it in post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure.

A rap concept album, Deltron 3030 follows rogue mech pilot, computer hacker, and galactic MC Deltron Zero. The first musical track of the album, 3030, has Del establishing his sci-fi nerd credentials by giving his alter-ego’s backstory while mixing in technobabble and references to Neuromancer, Ghost in the Shell, and Metropolis using his smooth, adaptable flow. It also introduces Dan the Automator’s production, which for the duration of the album evokes an eerie, pulp science fiction movie feeling while still sounding incredibly modern. 

Songs continue in this vein until the track Virus, where Del switches from self-aggrandizement to something more substantial. He says he wants to code a virus that will collapse Earth’s computer networks and bring down its corporations, since in this future technological progress only serves to enrich the elite while a lot of people live in dilapidated ghettos. Through Madness, Turbulence, and Memory Loss, as well as the short skits between songs, Del develops this future he’s imagined while occasionally taking a break to fly his freak flag (most notably on The Fantabulous Rap Extravaganza Part II).

It’s a future where, even though people can teleport and buy holograms of themselves and go to Pluto, not much has changed for the common man’s quality of life. The solar system still revolves around money, people still live in poverty, and corporate interests still reign supreme. Several times the lyrics mention this future being post-apocalyptic, but they never specify what the apocalyptic event was. Maybe it isn’t a single big disaster, but just the depressing fact that, a thousand years in the future, humanity hasn’t really made any progress. At a certain point we hit a socioeconomic bottleneck that we never got past.

A lot of people can’t get into Del tha Funkee Homosapien because of his eccentricities, but in Deltron 3030 he uses the sharable language of science fiction to make his points about society, tell outlandish stories, and just generally brag about how great he is. If you like sci-fi and you’ve never been able to get into hip-hop, or vice-versa, give Deltron 3030 a listen.