Mega Ran & Gamechops Black Materia: The Remake Splatter Vinyl Edition

Ten years in the making, Black Materia: The Remake is a hip hop tribute to Final Fantasy VII, one of the greatest video games of all time.

Video game rapper Raheem “Mega Ran” Jarbo and record label GameChops are releasing Black Materia: The Remake, a 22-track album of original rap songs inspired by Final Fantasy VII Remake, the award-winning 2020 reboot of one of the most popular video games of all time.

Featuring twenty five guest producers and rappers, Black Materia: The Remake takes listeners on a hip hop journey through Final Fantasy VII. The role playing game centers on a group of heroic revolutionaries fighting to bring down Shinra, an energy company that’s destroying the planet for profit.

Black Materia: The Remake retells the video game’s acclaimed story through narrative lyricism and powerful performances. The beats and backing tracks feature memorable moments from Nobuo Uematsu’s acclaimed Final Fantasy VII score.

Mega Ran is a leading voice in nerdcore hip hop, a subgenre of rap music which focuses on pop culture and video games. He has performed at hundreds of conventions, expos, and music festivals around the world, including Penny Arcade Expo (pax), New York Comic Con (nycc), and South by Southwest (sxsw), where he has rapped about everything from Star Wars to professional wrestling. In 2019, Ran was awarded a Guinness World Record title for the most video game rap songs ever released.

For Mega Ran, Black Materia: The Remake is the culmination of a more than decade-long career making hip hop tributes to video games. Following the viral success of his original Black Materia album in 2011, Ran left his job as a middle school teacher to pursue music full time.

“Final Fantasy 7 is eternal,” Ran says. “The magic surrounding that game will never die. The Black Materia album represents a landmark in the story of Mega Ran; so it was a little nerve-wracking to attempt to revisit it. But I knew if we were going to do it, it had to be bigger. We've all learned so much since 2011, and it's a welcome challenge to get together and showcase that.”