The Witzard

"DEDICATED TO LOVERS OF MAXI-SINGLES AND EVERY JAZZY, ACOUSTIC BASS-DRIVEN HIP-HOP SONG, WHICH PROVIDED THE SOUNDTRACK FOR A PRETENTIOUS, UNNECESSARY ARTSY RAP VIDEO DURING THE EARLY 90'S..." reads the reverse side of Long Beach rapper-producer Andy Cooper's latest "Here Comes Another One" 12-inch. If pressed, I would likely equate Andy Cooper's second solo album, the layered effect to something along the lines of Homeboy Sandman's First of a Living Breed or Beastie Boys' 1989 cult favorite, Paul's Boutique; an increasingly fun, charismatic Golden Age Hip-Hop-reminiscent album chock-full with an insane amount of genre-eschewing samples. the layered effect is entirely self-produced by Andy Cooper himself—particularly, note-worthy for his past work with Ugly Duckling and The Allergies—and plays out like a care-free, fun-loving Hip-Hop album of days past. After seeing Andy's "Here Comes Another One" video on Flea Market Funk ...

I recently heard about rapper-producer Drew Scott after fellow Baltimore beat-maker John "Jumbled" Bachman shared his latest single from then-unreleased ILL VESSEL, Hemlock Ernst, Eze Jackson & 83cutlass-featuring "Porcelain." I immediately reached out to Drew Scott, simply on the strength of "Porcelain," and we quickly began emailing back and forth. Before too long, he sent me a pre-release copy of said album, ILL VESSEL along with this fitting, extremely descriptive statement: "So, it's kind of a solo album/collaborative project I've been working on for about three years in-between the last BLACKSAGE album and Luvadocious with Al Rogers, Jr. Predominantly Baltimore artists, aside from PT Burnem (Richmond, VA,) Mike East (Rhode Island,) and Jaws That Bite (Detroit.) I did almost all of the beats, aside from contributions from Berlin-based producer Owen Ross , the Jumbled-produced track, the Mike East-produced track, and collaborating wi...