Most nerds would never get the chance to autograph a woman's breasts, but when you're rocketing into the nerdcore rap scene like Beefy, some stereotypes are bound to be shattered.

"At a show I was opening for in Portland, a buxom lady grabbed a sharpie from my girlfriend, who was working the merch booth, and asked if I'd sign her chest. I kinda looked at her wide-eyed, then slowly turned to my girlfriend and asked if that was OK and she just laughed and said sure," said Beefy.

Beefy - or Keith Moore as he is known offstage in his hometown of Richland, Washington - is in the business of shattering nerd stereotypes.

For one thing, Beefy is proof that nerds can rap.

His music is part of a growing nerdcore rap genre that celebrates all things nerdy in hip-hop form, from GURPS to Nintendo and everything in between.

"Nerdcore is hip-hop, usually pointed towards the kind of people who kick it in a basement on Friday night, drinking Mountain Dew, playing Smash Bros and talking about what happened at last week's D&D game," the rapper said. "It's music that encourages people to say, 'Yeah, I'm a geek. I like math and Battlestar Galactica and Street Fighter. What of it?'"

Before Beefy made it big in nerdcore, though, he was in the business of working two part-time jobs - one as a pizza maker and another as a video game store clerk. He started rapping in the eighth grade with the standard gangsta style that saturated hip-hop, but he stopped when he realized that trying to be a thug didn't reflect who he really was.

"I couldn't pull off rapping my lies with a straight face. … I like to be very personal with my audience and if I start talking bullshit I feel like they can sense it and will call me out as a liar. So, I started making songs that I could perform honestly, that were true," Beefy said.

For Beefy, truth meant not only embracing his inner nerd but also running with it. He released his first two EPs, "Whitesican" and "nerd." in 2005. By 2006, he had his first studio album, "Tube Technology," up for download on his Web site, beefyness.com.

Since then, Beefy's been gaining momentum with his second LP, "Rolling Doubles." Released in late 2008, Beefy's first retail album has come a long way since his days of free download premieres and is now featured as a digital download on both amazon.com and iTunes.

Beefy drew a lot of inspiration from his own nerd life for the album, with tracks like "Dork Date" and "Play With Me," exploring the possibilities that arise when geek guys meet geek girls, whether the guy ends up sweeping the girl off her feet, playing Street Fighter into the night or stammers and stutters when she walks up to him at a LAN party, asking for a CD key.

"I've been in both situations. Never with quite the swagger that I pretend to have in 'Dork Date,' but 'Play With Me' is way accurate," he said.

But for Beefy, "Story Time" is one of his most personal tracks on the album.

"I was feeling bad about being a failure at school, chasing a girl and losing friends, so I wrote a song about it," said Beefy.

His lyrics on the track can cut close to home for some nerds, rapping about how a bad work ethic can result from being just smart enough to get by with minimal effort in high school, or about disrespecting yourself by settling for the wrong girl.

Even as a nerdcore rapper, Beefy's goal has always been to just be as real as he can.

"I like to get personal on some tracks to remind people I'm not just some character and that my whole life isn't about comics and video games," Beefy said.

Ever since he stopped trying to be like every other hip-hop thug in the genre, Beefy has maintained his own brand of authenticity, something he thinks that other modern rappers have forgotten.

"At some point I think hip-hop stopped caring about being enlightened and started worrying about being catchy. Auto-tune is killing hip-hop. Screaming 'What!' as a legit lyric is killing hip-hop," said the nerdcore artist. "They need to just get back to doing something meaningful and not just trying to get a catchy hook stuck in everyone's head."

Last week, Beefy returned to Washington from his European debut at the Glitched concert in Amsterdam, the first-ever Dutch venue for the nerdcore genre. But a Hawai'i performance might not be that far off.

"Believe me, I'd love to," said Beefy. "The second someone says 'Hey Beefy, we'll fly you over if you rock the stage for us!' I'll be there in a heartbeat!"

ROLLING DOUBLES

$7.99 Digital Download @ Amazon.com amazon.com/Rolling-Doubles/dp/B001EL7W3M

$10 + $2 S+H for the autographed CD @ beefyness.com beefyness.com/?p=73