Rapper MC Chris has a significant and sometimes intensely personal relationship with his fans.

How personal? He's been known to crash fans' house parties or just stop by to play video games. He includes them in T-shirt design and remix competitions on his Web site. He reaches out to them to help fund research against a debilitating disease. They've been his lifeblood over a nearly ten-year music career.

Houston fans have two chances to catch him this week. He's hosting a screening of How To Train Your Dragon 2 tonight at Alamo Drafthouse Vintage Park and tomorrow he'll be one of dozens of acts braving the heat at Houston's Vans Warped Tour stop.

He said he's hosted more than a half-dozen similar screenings at Alamo Drafthouse in Austin. Tonight's selection suits him particularly well, since he is also a talented animator who has written and done voice work for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.

"I say a couple of words beforehand explaining why we're all here, what we're all doing, why we're watching this movie and then we just have a good time," he says, while highly endorsing the Drafthouse's food and popcorn.

"It's a great way to say hi to fans," he continues. "It'll get me in the right frame of mind for a very long tour this summer on Warped Tour. It just gives me a chance to hang out with fans, which is something I like to do."

He's equally excited about Warped, which starts here tomorrow and runs into August. He's done the tour before, in 2008, and is looking forward to sharing the bill this year with acts like K. Flay, Less Than Jake, Teenage Bottlerocket and Watsky.

"The last time I did Warped Tour I discovered bands like The Gaslight Anthem and Against Me! and a lot of bands I'd never heard of," Chris says. "That's what Warped Tour is about. You go there not really knowing what you're going to find and you discover some things."

This year, MC Chris is touring to support his latest release, the double album MC Chris Foreverrr. Fans can expect a healthy dose of new songs, along with favorites like "Fett's Vette," "Hoodie Ninja," and "MC Chris is Dead." As always, the songs are geeked out with references to Star Wars, Super Mario Bros. and the like. This time out, there are specific references to Stephen Hawking and Stephen King, Ghostbusters and The Addams Family.

Fans know the drill, but what they may not know is how every song in his discography is a personal, sometimes cathartic, expression about real things happening in his life.

"This was my first album that I'd ever made sober. I'd been smoking weed every day, all day long, for like 18 years, and then I went to therapy and sobered up," he says. "It was all just kind of fallout from my father's death; so, I wanted to make an album talking about ghosts and death and my dad."

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