Las Vegas Weekly

Modern Science experiments with hip-hop

Genre bending has its benefits for the local duo

Reallionaire Jream (center) joins Modern Science on stage Saturday during a performance at the Hard Rock Cafe on the Strip.

Photo: Donna Smith

Modern Science brought more than funk to the stage during their Saturday night performance at Hard Rock Café on the Strip; they brought a dash of hip-hop, too.

Local emcee Reallionaire Jream, recently listed as one of the 10 Vegas Acts to Watch in 2010 by the Weekly, joined the pop-funk duo on stage to freestyle during the band's "U Funk Me Up." The collaboration was improvised, Modern Science bassist Mike McHugh explains, scheduled only 30 minutes before the band began playing.

The modest crowd Saturday loudly applauded the cross-genre venture — a good sign for Modern Science, which plans to embrace hip-hop in a big way this year.

The duo has teamed up with Deltron (aka Del The Funky Homosapien, best known as the rapper from the Gorillaz) for a song called "Do It Right Now," which they plan to release online in March. They've also recently finished recording a track with New York-based rapper Rep and are planning to record what vocalist Kane Churko describes as "a sequel" to the 2pac song "Brenda's Got A Baby" with 19-year-old local rapper Dizzy D. Not to mention future work with Reallionaire Jream.

"It's a real cool cultural thing," McHugh explains. "We're two geeky white kids, but we're seeing eye-to-eye with these hip-hop artists. We think we can do something really special and cool."

Adds Churko, "We're finding that incorporating more hip-hop elements into our music helps the funk make more sense to a younger generation."

Though Modern Science is embracing hip-hop, it's not shying away from other types of music. The band's next song (they'll be dropping one per month leading up to the release of their second album at the end of this year) is a pop tune called "Someday." McHugh and Churko originally crafted the song for the Jonas Brothers, but decided to record it themselves after negotiations with the brotherly bubblegum superstars fell through.