The Witzard

Lushlife (Rajesh "Raj" Haldar) has long been one of our favorite emcees/producers here at The Witzard. We've been closely paying attention to and following his career since about 2005 upon the release of his Kanye West/Beach Boys mash-up mixtape, West Sounds . Lushlife has since let loose a gaggle of genre-defying releases including, but not limited to, collaborations with Ariel Pink, Killer Mike, CSLSX, Cities Aviv, STS, Dice Raw, Heems, Zilla Rocca, Sad13, R. Stevie Moore, Kevin D'Mello (Fakevinyl, Forevertron,) Camp Lo, eLZhi, billy woods, Moor Mother, John Morrison, and Khruangbin. As you can see, Lushlife has always comfortably teetered the fine line in-between Hip-Hop/Indie Rock; a prime example of this being "In Soft Focus" from Lushlife's 2009 effort, Cassette City, credits Rajesh Haldar with backing vocals/turntables, drums from Kyle Cedermark, primary features from Ariel Pink & eLZhi, and production from Lushlife himself. Lushlife...

Moor Jewelry (CREDIT: Bob Sweeney) Moor Jewelry —sometimes, known as " Moor X Jewelry "—is a collaborative Philly-based project consisting of Camae Anywa (Moor Mother) and Steve Montenegro (Mental Jewelry.) Don Giovanni Records released Moor X Jewelry 's debut collaborative EP, Crime Waves , back in June 2017 to both widespread critical and fan acclaim. Prior to Crime Waves , two early Mental Jewelry tracks, actually, appeared on Moor Mother 's 2017 album, The Motionless Present , released on UK-based The Vinyl Factory ; one of those formative tracks, "Big Crime," would end up re-appearing on Crime Waves and the other, "Remember," remains a Motionless Present -only exclusive. Moor Mother has since shared a solo album, Analog Fluids of Sonic Black Holes (2019) on Don Giovanni , as well as six appearances across Zonal 's 12-track 2019 Relapse Records album, Wrecked . Together, Moor Mother x Zonal , additionally, released non-album cu...