The Witzard

James Reitano is a director, animator, graphic designer, illustrator, and devout Skinhead. No, not THAT kind of "Skinhead!" A different kind of Skinhead... one often motivated by social alienation and working-class solidarity, who could often be seen wearing their hair close-cropped or shaven and working-class clothing, such as Dr. Martens/steel-toe work boots, braces, high-rise and varying length straight-leg jeans, and button-down collar shirts, usually, slim-fitting in check or plain. Skinhead Punk/Reggae was initially popular in The United Kingdom during the 1960's and experienced a second wave of popularity through the mid-70's to early 80's world-wide. Reitano currently runs a "tradition Skin-zine" out of Santa Cruz, California called Boots N Booze (or @bootsnboozemagazine on Instagram ) which regularly posts archival photos, nostalgic show flyers, sought-after 7/12-inch covers, and Skin-centric nuggets of information. James Reitano, also, runs a ...

Ozomatli are a Los Angeles -based 6-piece " Latin/Funk/Hip-Hop and everything in-between" band, who are currently celebrating their 22nd year creating genre-eschewing music together. Ozomatli's current line-up consists of Wil-Dog Abers on bass guitar/background vocals, Ulises Bella on saxophone, clarinet, Requinto Jarocho, keyboard, melodica & background vocals, Raúl "El Bully" Pacheco on guitar, tres, Jarana & lead vocals, Justin "El Niño" Porée on percussion/Rap vocals, Asdru Sierra on trumpet, keyboard & lead vocals, and Jiro Yamaguchi on drums, tabla, percussion & background vocals. Although, at one point in time, Ozomalti 's line-up famously included Chali 2na & Cut Chemist , who would later, go on to form one of my personal favorite Hip-Hop crews, Jurassic 5 , together; both Chali 2na & Cut Chemist appeared throughout Ozomatli 's 1998 self-titled debut and would later appear separately on Embrace The C...

Bar for bar, Homeboy Sandman is easily, one of the most talented and somehow still, criminally under-rated emcees in all of Hip-Hop ! I've personally been a Sandman fan since his 2012 Stones Throw debut, First of a Living Breed and since, he's worked with the likes of Blu , Jonwayne, Paul White , Jake One, L'Orange , 2 Hungry Bros. RJD2 , Mono En Stereo FKA El RTNC, 88-Keys , and maybe, most notably, Aesop Rock ; between 2015-17, Aesop & Sand infested the masses with Lice , Lice 2: Still Buggin' and Triple Fat Lice to wide-spread critical and fan acclaim. While we're still waiting for a proper Lice full-length, Homeboy Sandman has teamed up with kindred spirit, Brooklyn -based DJ, producer, and emcee, Edan , for a brand spankin' new collaborative effort. Edan is arguably, one of the greatest and most eclectic artists in all of Hip-Hop and while he hasn't released a proper album since 2005's Beauty & The Beat , he's been moderately a...

"Back in the 90's, when I first got on the phone with Biz Markie, he told me he had a 7-inch of my favorite Donovan song, "Get Thy Bearings," with an instrumental flip. "Why did you rap over the vocal on "I Told You?'" I asked. "I sampled the instrumental and put the vocals back in because it sounded better," was his reply. Four years after that conversation, I worked with @danube_productions [The Sand Dollars] and we actually, created a "Get Thy Bearings" A/B-side combo, as The Biz described, in homage to one of the greatest record collectors Hip-Hop produced. As deep as Biz is, though, he didn't have Apple & The Three Oranges' LA über-rarity, "Moon Light," one of my dude Madlib's favorite Soul songs. Mine, too. It's one of @cutchemist's, too. He and Biz made a song around it for his latest album [Die Cut]. Peep his Bio for more info. "Moon Light! Clear skies!" Love that sh*t....

Last month, Stones Throw (@stonesthrow) mysteriously posted " @edanexists & @homeboysandman are working on some music together, which will debut at our SXSW showcase this Friday" on their Instagram page, which has since garnered 2,667+ Likes. As should be expect, for anyone interested in Indie/Underground Hip-Hop , a few of my writer friends and I went nuts on Rap Twitter . About for weeks have passed with no additional mention of Sandman & Edan 's rumored collaborative efforts from Stones Throw . Just this morning, on a whim, I decided to check Stones Throw 's home page and BAM! there it was: "Homeboy Sandman & Edan #NeverUseTheInternetAgain" —right there in the middle column of the front page. It seems as though no one (aside from RAW DRIVE ) had noticed or even checked Stones Throw 's site for the past 7 hours or so, this including myself! While on a roll about the downsides of The Internet , Sandman jokingly(?) rhymes: "Inter...

"This music makes me wanna make more children. It makes me feel like things are gonna be alright," Atmosphere emcee Slug once proclaimed concerning Minneapolis-based duo Bones & Beeker. Consisting of Anthony "Tony" Newes (vocals, guitar, keys, and other sounds) and Brendan Kelly AKA BK-One (production, drum programming, keys, glockenspiel, kalimba) Bones & Beeker released a self-titled 2015 album on Wax Poetics Records . While it's hard to peg Bones & Beeker's output as one distinct genre label, they draw influence from Jazz, Funk/Soul, Indie Pop, Hip-Hop, and a multitude of genre-eschewing sounds; however, the most fitting descriptions of Bones & Beeker's overall sound I've found comes directly from the band themselves—Tony describing it as "The Toys meet Hip-Hop" and BK-One likening their sound to "a sample-based Paul Simon"—during a 2015 video interview with THEOREMATIC . Bones & Beeker also features inst...

"The Audience's Following is a 10-year anniversary fan club edition version of The Audience's Listening. I like to call this the bizzaro version follow-up to [The Audience's Listening], as it features songs that never made the cut and demo versions of songs that did. There are also B-sides from vinyl singles, plus a special mix of the original song sampled for "What's The Altitude" by Curtis Knight[-Zeus] . Have fun listening to the album that was almost released 10 years ago. It's the follow-up and the audience is still following and listening and... whatever else," world-renowned DJ Lucas "Cut Chemist" Macfadden wrote within a short 7/11 Bandcamp description attached to The Audience's Following. Now, I don't mean to get all fanboy here, but I've been actively wishing and working on scoring an interview with Cut Chemist for about 3-5 years now; I can remember purchasing Jurassic 5, Cut's on-again off-again and recently...

" Sound Me fully embodies the ambiance and a sense of dualism captured between a dark past giving way to a brighter future. Inspired by the struggle of living day-to-day in working class Poland , Aani spins her lyricism into an art that paints a picture of love lost searching for a genuine connection, in a world that seems to have long forgotten the almost reminiscent old school values embedded in the unique style delivered by Sound Me ," WeGrowWax wrote within a self-contained press release shared on Polish Trip-Hoppers Sound Me 's mysteriously sparse Bandcamp page. Upon a first listen to Sound Me 's snippet-laced "Growing" (Album Promo Mix) , my well-trained ear immediately sensed notes of Amy Winehouse backed by Jurassic 5 in-house DJ's Cut Chemist and DJ Nu-Mark , as well as skilled songstresses Joss Stone , Macy Grey, and jj frontwoman Elin Kastlander —all of course, backed by Mayer Hawthorne -esque trumpet work. "[ Sound Me is] a ...

Aside from the Beastie Boys of course, I think it's pretty safe to say that Jurassic 5 were my first favourite Hip-Hop group that I discovered entirely on my own; if I'm not mistaken, "What's Golden" was featured on some sort of early 2000's basketball game for either N64 or PlayStation . Power In Numbers (2002) still remains in heavy rotation in my car stereo and is without a doubt one of my all-time favourite Hip-Hop albums. I remember having a burned CD-R copy of the album released either directly before of after Power In Numbers , which was always an enjoyable listen, too. After releasing four positive "Conscious Hip-Hop" albums and one EP between 1993-2007, Jurassic 5 decided to part ways and unveiled one final album recorded without previously departed DJ Cut Chemist , Feedback . Following the under-the-radar release(s) and luke warm commercial reception of a few side projects, including Ron Artiste and a compilation of 1980's ...

Brainfreeze 45 extraordinaire and Jurassic 5 DJ Cut Chemist was temporarily locked up for unspecified reasons in recent years, but now he's back with a long-awaited new [compilation] album, Funk Off ; partially previewed during "an excellent mix for the Stones Throw Podcast called Cassette Culture using four cassette decks and tracks from a release he was working on called Funk Off ," it's a quasi-collaboration with 1980's French New-Wave groups Vox Populi! & Pacific 231 . Cut Chemist unleashed two non-album singles leading up to Funk Off 's October 29th release, "Outro (Revisited)" and "Work My Mind." The latter is essentially a re-imagining/remix of [Vox Populi!] album track "Alternative Fresh," which features select verses by Jurassic 5 frontman Chali 2na and Hymnal . "Work My Mind" is more or less a self-described "future-primitive analogue thriller," complete with a music video directed ...

Cut Chemist has remained fairly quiet since parting ways with long-time Hip-Hop crew, Jurassic 5 (2006). Currently readying his first solo album in roughly 6 years - Die Cut , Cut Chemist apparently spent some time holed up in a jail cell semi-recently. Somewhat fittingly then, Lucas MacFadden 's premier track back is a frantic-paced, Punk -inspired Hip-Hop DJ jam; For "Outro (Revisited)," Cut Chemist assembled a pretty solid pick-up band featuring members of The Mars Volta and Weapon of Choice , Deantoni Parks and Lonnie Marshall . Veteran underground MC, Blackbird steps in to handle vocal duties... Cut Chemist may still be best known for his legendary 7" record-scratching magnum opus with DJ Shadow : Brainfreeze , which has been heavily bootlegged since it's 1999 limited release. While Die Cut is currently without a concrete release date, "Outro (Revisited)" was issued as a 12" single back on April 10th. The best interpretation ...