The Witzard

Monday morning, self-described "Rap singer, song-writer, beat-maker, and pal" Donovan "ialive" Phillips quietly announced he'll be releasing his fourth (fifth?) solo studio album, I'LL WAIT FOREVER , later this month. It will be his fourth consecutive release with Baltimore-based Cold Rhymes Records run and operated by Dan "Height" Keech & MISTER AKA Cool Guy Bry . We first heard about ialive through an interview posted by John "Jumbled" Bachman on his blog a few years back with both Donnie & Darko The Super , together, billed as The Hellhole Store . ialive 's Height Keech -produced TIMEWAVE ZERO (2017) and self-produced follow-up, DON'T DO NOTHING (2019) were, easily, two of our favorite Hip-Hop albums of the last few years. I'LL WAIT FOREVER is the direct follow-up to ialive 's Odds & Ends-style 2019 EP, ODD ORTS , which boasts remixes from both Juan Cosby & Unsung. Now, it appears as though this...

No Sleep 'til Baltimore was a tribute/benefit show held at The Ottobar in Baltimore back on Friday, July 7th. It was billed as a "benefit to help local musician adopt" with "local musician" being producer John Bachman (Jumbled) and his wife Rachel . Not only was No Sleep 'til Baltimore a fundraiser to help The Bachmans earn money for their adoption, it was dually billed as a tribute to the Beastie Boys' monumental Rick Rubin -produced 1986 Def Jam debut, Licensed to Ill . Berko Lover did a rendition of "Girls," GUY GRAMS performed a roaring rendition of "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)" MC Bravado & S.U. The Clique covered "No Sleep 'til Brooklyn," Drew Scott & Vans_Westly did "Hold It Now, Hit It" with a little help from Jumbled himself, The Hell Hole Store covered "Brass Monkey," and much, much more. By all accounts, No Sleep 'til Baltimore was a great suc...

"Hey, what's up? I'm Darko The Super AKA Doc Heller , an Experimental Hip-Hop artist from Philadelphia , by way of Jupiter. These are a few albums that have influenced my production [work]. There's much more, but these were the ones I found easiest to write about. Obviously, Frank Zappa is the greatest musician of all time and has affected me in greater ways than just sonically, but I found it too difficult to choose just one of his albums to mention from his massive catalog. Also, Camu Tao 's King of Hearts (2010) was on my list, but I couldn't think up something good enough to do it justice. Anyway, here's my Beat-maker Bedrock ." Watered Down Demon Fuzz by Darko the Super Charles Hamilton - My Brain Is Alive mixtape (2009) " Charles Hamilton 's my favorite producer and an artist who doesn't get nearly the credit he deserves for influencing a whole generation of rappers. Out of the 200 or so albums he's released, I chose My...