The Witzard

TORTURED SOUL (The Mixtape) is the latest release from Black Sheep/Black Sheep Dres AKA Andres "Dres" Vargas Titus. Dres was effectively one half of the New York-based group and is now its sole member, which was one of the inner groups within 90's Boom-Bap crew, The Native Tongues Collective. Along with fellow core Natives The Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Lucien Revolucien, Monie Love, Queen Latifah, Chi-Ali & Fu-Schnickens, Black Sheep's Dres & Mista Lawnge helped shape post-Gangsta Rap 1980-90's Hip-Hop. The Native Tongues, unknowingly, spear-headed a Conscious Hip-Hop movement, which would, in turn, influence and help found similar-minded collectives, such as The Flavor Unit MC's, The SpitKicker Crew, The okayplayers, The Soulquarians, and production collective The Ummah. However, after releasing two critically-acclaimed and widely-loved albums, A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing (1991) and Non-Fiction (1994) Black Sheep disbande...

"I'm Zilla Rocca. I rap, produce, and write articles. I have my own Indie label, Three Dollar Pistol Music and put out music with my friends Curly Castro, Small Professor, and PremRock as our posse, Wrecking Crew. Me and Small Pro put out a group album as Career Crooks [last] year called Good Luck with That , where he did all of the beats, but I've been a producer, as well for 15 years. So, here's some of the most important albums to me, when I'm "behind the boards.'" I. Handsome Boy Modeling School - So... How's Your Girl? (1999) "I remember buying this album in 1999 and having no clue how any of these songs were made. I didn't start making beats for another three years or so, but this album never left my conciousness. [Dan The] Automator is one of my all-time favorite producers because he bounces between genres effortlessly, from Serge Gainsbourg stuff with Lovage, to Sci-Fi Fantasy Robot sh*t with Deltron [3030], to the first Go...