The Witzard

Anwar HighSign is a talented emcee and producer originally hailing from Philly. Anwar HighSign went by Has-Lo for the majority of his career up until very recently. Anwar HighSign/Has-Lo has appeared on songs alongside Al-Shid, Arckatron, Armand Hammer, Blueprint, Castle, Dr. Quandary, August Fanon, Willie Green, HU$ KINGPIN & SmooVth, Illogic, J-Zone, Open Mike Eagle, Preservation, Vic Spencer, and Stik Figa. Most recently, Anwar appeared on "Pressed" from Atmosphere's 2021 effort, WORD? going bar for bar with BlackLiq, Sa-Roc, Haphduzn & Lateef The Truthspeaker. Just about two weeks ago, Anwar HighSign self-released his second proper project since moving onward and upward from Has-Lo. Live N*gga Prophesy was released on February 4th (on Anwar's birthday) and boasts five original tracks fully written, produced, and arranged by Anwar HighSign himself. Kyle Tierce (Quandary) for Memetic Supply Co. made a hand-cut paper collage with some digital embellish...

La Donna Che Toccò Il Diavolo by I Griz "The Devil Smiles Back [Il Diavolo Ricambia Il Sorriso] (1969) follows Father Ezra, a Catholic priest in 1920's Milan, who is haunted by the re-appearance of his long-thought-dead first love, Francesca. Upon her re-appearance, Francesca seeks to rekindle her relationship with Ezra and sway him from his vows, but the priest is preoccupied by a series of mysterious and grisly killings, which have plagued the diocese. Taking it upon himself to investigate, after the local authorities have all but abandoned the case, Ezra stumbles upon evidence that the murders are at the work of a den of vampires living within the cathedral's sunken catacombs. As he digs deeper, he discovers that The Bishop and his deacons are in league with the unholy night-dwellers, leaving him with no choice but to exterminate the vampire epidemic single-handely with fists, stakes, and silver bullets. After the bloody and brutal rampage, the final pieces fit toge...

Lost Remixes by Algorhythms Justin Boland & Kyle Tierce were the co-founders of beloved and now-defunct Indie/Underground Hip-Hop label and collective, World Around Records . Thanks to Zilla Rocca , we ran a sort of label send-off/track-by-track breakdown for their final comp. before permanently closing up shop, 2017's We Are World Around, Vol. 6 . Tierce frequently records and releases "dusty, sample-heavy beats inspired by the Psychedelic music of the late 1960's" as Dr. Quandary , according to Discogs . Aside from his solo output, Quandary recently released an album of fictional Italian "film scores" as MASSIMO E MASSIMO with Dakota Crane and produced the entirety of one-time label mate Louis Mackey 's 2017 effort, AVGVSTVS . Boland, on the other hand, has recorded and released music under a revolving door of musical nom de plumes, over the years, including, but not limited to Thirtyseven , Humpasaur Jones, Hump Jones , FDR with Godforbid...

"I first met Zilla, barely out of college, downing bottles of malt liquor and idiotically, drunkenly throwing them into darkened stairwells at his old Catholic high school in South Philly. He was aligned his former crew then, one half of a Rap group called Clean Guns , attempting to start a fledgling label in an underground climate that seemed inhospitable and rebarbative to anyone trying to figure out what Boom-Bap would sound like 20 years in the future. Zilla could always rap and produce, but he hadn't found a voice or character that allowed him to channel what eventually reached its (27-inch) zenith on Future Former Rapper—believe it! Starting with the 5 O'Clock Shadowboxers project, he's refined an aesthetic akin to Raymond Chandler raised on Raekwon, splitting the difference between James Ellroy and Guru sneering at rivals that they're paranoid because they're sons like Elroy. One of the reasons why I started POW was to offer a wayward station for the ...

Elder Orange is the recording alias of Vermont -based producer, multi-instrumentalist, and "all around nice guy" Matt Scott (@MatthewLScott.) For years, Scott had a long-standing working relationship with international collective/ Indie Hip-Hop label World Around Records , until the imprint's demise in 2016. World Around issued a number of collaborative releases featuring Elder Orange alongside Dr. Quandary and Louis Mackey , as well as tracks appearing on We Are World Around, Vol. 5-6 . Matt Scott splits his time between Elder Orange and North East Kingdom Soul/R&B/Jazz/Funk/Rock quartet The NEKTones , in which he provides gtr. vox. AKA guitar and vocals. While Scott has released and participated in countless projects, he just liberated his proper debut album, All My Friends Believe In Ghosts (AMFBIG,) this past Friday, June 1st, which was also, his father's 64th birthday and Scott's first day on leave from his job of eight years to pursue music fu...

South Philly rapper-producer and one half of Career Crooks , Zilla Rocca has returned with his first proper solo release of 2018, "99 Triple 5 Soul Flow." Zilla is not only, part of Career Crooks with producer buddy Small Professor , but also, runs with his own crews, The Shadowboxers —formerly, The 5 O'Clock Shadow Boxers —and Wrecking Crew with fellow emcees Curly Castro & PremRock , along with Small Pro . Zilla Rocca additionally, runs his own Philly -based label, Three Dollar Pistol Music , is co-creator of @rapbooklets' Instagram , and fancies himself a " Noir-Hop originator and corrupt novelist." "99 Triple 5 Soul Flow" is of course, a reference to infamous 1990's Hip-Hop clothing brand Triple 5 Soul and is the sequel to last year's similarly-minded "98 Avirex Flow;" a stand-alone single with sonic ties to Zilla Rocca 's upcoming '96 Mentality , which was produced by Disco Vietnam AKA @SupernovaLox ...

Aside from our aptly-named ongoing The Witzard Interview(s) series, 3 Fee High & Rising new artist featurette, and producer-selected playlist Beat-maker Bedrock , we really don't have a lot of recurring columns here at The Witzard. Partly because my fiance and I just moved into our first home together within the last month or so and also because there's just an influx of solid independent releases before year's end, I thought it might be a good time to start up a new recurring weekly wrap-up column tentatively titled, The Witzard's Take 5: Five Independent/Self-released Albums & EP's Worth Checking Out This Week. So, without further ado, here's The Witzard's Top 5 albums/EP's for the "week of" 10/27-11/3—a slightly expanded "weekly" edition to include a couple releases from last week, as well—in no particular order or ranking. Now, a few of these artists should be quite familiar to The Witzard regulars, while some might be e...

I'm currently working on ironing out the fine details for a premier of a Zilla Rocca remix of CURTA's "Rap Trope Questionnaire" (or CURTA ZR remix), which should be making its digital debut here at The Witzard shortly. While emailing back and forth with Zilla, Jake & Brent, Zilla nonchalantly mentioned he had a track on a compilation released by "the guys from this label I rocked with for a while, World Around Records;" said compilation was uploaded just one day prior on Valentine's Day and was fittingly titled, We Are World Around Vol. 6. Zilla further detailed that "World Around was based out of New England and put out some good, spacey East Coast Art-House records over the years, if you're not familiar with them" within his initial email. As a matter of fact, the deeper I dug into We Are World Around Vol. 6 (WAWA V6, for short), I realized that while I hadn't previously heard of the label, I previously had worked with a number ...

Creative Director Kyle Tierce (Dr. Quandary) with some final words on World Around Records: "One of the things we had always really enjoyed putting together, and which had also always been hugely successful, was our annual We Are World Around compilation series. Starting in 2010, we made it a tradition to kick off each new year by releasing a collection of new material from our roster and our extended family. We'd invite the whole gang, as well as whoever else we might be digging or working with at the time, to throw down some exclusive music, which we'd then weave together to create a tracklist. It was always amazing how well they would come together—in hindsight, they always sounded pretty polished and cohesive, even though they weren't pre-planned in terms of theme or whatever. We Are World Around, Vol. 6 wasn't any different. Within a couple days of emailing everyone, we had already received something like seven tracks, so we were well on our way to having ...