The Witzard

CREDIT: Justin Mayer (@OldCity215) Honestly, it doesn't even feel like there's a proper way to elegize an eccentric and extremely talented artist such as MF DOOM, who meant so much to so many of us for so many years for so many different reasons as truly unique as DOOM himself. So, what better way to pay tribute to The Man, The Myth, THE MASK himself than by speaking to those closest to him? With a heavy heart, I proudly present Shadows of Tomorrow; a new recurring column in tribute to DOOM in an effort to re-tell the tall tales, strange stories, and lesser-known tidbits of The Metal Face Villain himself. R.I.P. Daniel "MF DOOM" Dumile Thompson. "DOOM broke the rules. While some of the greatest emcees were playfully comparing themselves to Ghost Rider or The Incredible Hulk, DOOM had one better. He didn't plan to passively reference, he would create a universe and rule it with an Iron Fist. With one snap of that metal fingered fist, he created an alternat...

Yasiin Bey FKA Mos Def once said, "Three key steps to leading a rewarding and enriched life: (1) Wake up, (2) be awesome, (3) LISTEN TO PRESERVATION." Preservation , otherwise known as Dj Preservation , Dj Jun, and Jun TME is/was part of Dr. Yen Lo with Brownsville emcee KA , Sonic Sum along with Rob Sonic, Fred Ones & Eric M.O. and TME PRO. Preservation has long operated as the touring DJ for both Yasiin Bey & KA and has produced music for Mach-Hommy , RZA, GZA , Raekwon, U-God , Sean Price, Roc Marciano , Ed O.G. KRS-One , Jean Grae, Aesop Rock , billy woods, and Your Old Droog . I can, personally, recall knowingly hearing Preservation 's work across the official 2013 re-worked companion to Mos Def 's The Ecstatic entitled The REcstatic ; although, Preservation previously contributed production work to Mighty Mos' 2006 album, True Magic , as well as the original aforementioned project, his "last" album as Mos Def , The Ecstatic (20...

The Message / Umi Says by Star Creature Universal Vibrations "New music alert! I'm super-happy to announce that I got 2 45's out today. First one is my versions of 2 classic cuts: "Umi Says" & "The Message." Get them while they last, via @starcreaturevibes . Link In Bio. Appreciate everybody that's been supporting me along the way," Noam (@soulsupreme) posted on Instagram on May 21, along with a couple "Praying Hands" Emojis. "Noam" is, of course, Tel Aviv, Israel-born, Amsterdam, The Netherlands-based producer and multi-instrumentalist Noam Ofir ; professionally, he goes by Soul Supreme , as well as Love's High , when playing with Marlon Penninkhof AKA Marlon Penn. Soul Supreme has previously done "live" remixes of everyone from A Tribe Called Quest to Stevie Wonder on his Instagram & Facebook Live pages. Noam & Marlon have released music—both together and separately—on Chicago-based Star Cr...

"Three key steps to leading a rewarding and enriched life: (1) wake up, (2) be awesome, (3) LISTEN TO PRESERVATION ," as charismatically explained by Yasiin Bey FKA Mos Def himself. Preservation is, in fact, a native New York DJ and producer, as well as a photographer and cinematographer, who actively records and releases music and was formerly known as Dj Jun . Preservation used to run and operate New Jersey -based Cloud City Studios and currently runs his own label imprint, Mon Dieu Music , which prides itself on "presenting a variety of cross-genre projects." Preservation has been part of a variety of groups and crews, over the years, including Dr. Yen Lo with Brownsville emcee Ka , Sonic Sum with Rob Sonic, Fred Ones & Eric M.O. and T.M.E. PRO with Fred Ones & Omar Agurto . As many of you may already well now, Mos Def is my all-time favorite emcee and for many years (maybe, even still?) Preservation functioned as Mos' in-house/tourin...

"It's hard to pinpoint the moment I wanted to become a producer. I do remember contemplating at a young age the elements of Hip-Hop, wondering where I fit in. My older brother wrote [graffiti]. My other brother's friends were DJ's and emcees. To 12-year-old me, it was logical to take a craft up in one of these cornerstones. I, actually, wanted to break, but having no actual training available to me, that didn't last long. Around this time, I recognized my affinity for beats and beat-making. The part that interested me the most was seeing people come up with something from nothing. You didn't need to know how to play an instrument. The process intrigued and excited me. The rapping was cool, but what moved me the most was the music. I could get down with an average emcee, so as long as the sh*t he was rhyming on was tight; vice-versa, if a fire emcee had wack beats, it felt wasted to me." Four Albums of Note (Honorable Mentions) 1. De La Soul - 3 Feet...

Just about a year ago, John "Jumbled" Bachman helped link me up with a fellow Baltimore-based producer buddy of his, Timothy "Tim" Chester AKA UncleRussie (@PeaceRussie.) Right around the time Tim. & I first met, he was preparing to release his next project, Trunks EP. which was a 14-track audiophonic examination of Trunks Brief - Past, Present, & Future (?) from Dragon Ball Z . Now, while I'll readily admit, I'm far from a die-hard Dragon Ball Z fan, it's been pretty interesting to learn about the series through a medium I'm extremely familiar with: Hip-Hop ! For Trunks EP. UncleRussie recruited a who's-who of The East Coast/Baltimore 's finest emcees, singers, and producers to help convey his vision, such as: Benjamin Banger , Dot-Com Intelligence, Swellthy , Action Bastard, TEK.LUN , ONLY, Jumbled , and Drew Scott. Many of you may recognize UncleRussie 's name from his submission(s) to The Witzard's Andy Cooper ...

"After /r/jimmyjrg created those stems of MF DOOM, I knew I had to follow up SADEVILLAIN with a [sequel] and this is exactly what I've done. I've had nothing but free time on my hands and went right to work on this project. The amount of recognition of the first tape got was insane, it was incredibly overwhelming and I still thank everyone who has listened to it," Seanh AKA clerksfanboy AKA Snh AKA @TheSeanh2k11 recently wrote within an /r/MFDOOM Subreddit titled I Present to You... SADEVILLAIN II. I've spoken with Seanh a few times over the course of the past year since the release of SADEVILLAIN (2016) and last I knew, he was busy crafting some original beats for an Aesop Rock remix project, which became his recent Aesop Rock vs. Seanh EP. It appears as though Seanh quietly uploaded SADEVILLAIN's proper sequel, fittingly titled SADEVILLAIN II, Monday afternoon and seemingly wasn't picked up by an media outlets until @okayplayer Tweeted out: "Ol...

Throw.sTones by Turkish Dcypha Turkish Dcypha is a producer and multi-genre DJ hailing from the UK , who co-owns a small boutique (or Indie ) record label called Dcypha Productions , which was founded by fellow producer Sway DaSafo around 2004 under Akon 's Konvict Muzik imprint. Turkish Dcypha has released a multitude of projects remixing and re-working the likes of Prince , Kanye, 2pac , Biggie, and JAY-DILLA ( Jay Z over J Dilla beats,) as well as his own instrumental music and original production work for Awate and Mr. Bigz . Turkish can count Yasiin Bey , DJ Premier, actor Idris Elba , and J Dilla's Estate amongst his famous fans; "Actually, I was listening to this kid Awate recently. You know him? He’s from Eritrea , I think, but now in London . It's produced by Turkish [Dcypha.] His beats are old school and very influenced by Dilla , Pete Rock , etc. I was super impressed..." Elba gushed within a 2014 taste-making interview with Noisey . I re...

"One of the running themes [throughout] Eddie Romero can be heard in the opening and closing tracks of the album, when I rhyme: "shall I croon or shall I spit?" Basically, I wanted to play with the image of an old school crooner, "a slow jam king," that all of a sudden flips his ballad on its ear and starts rhyming all fast and frenetic. On the first single, "Up to You" this idea is in full effect; to me, I feel like the melody is really sweet and romantic, but I wanted to contrast this with a fast and somewhat hectic beat that hits hard and could be equally at home with Big Daddy Kane rhyming over it." - Steve Mallorca (Sulu & Excelsior) Eddie Romero by Sulu and Excelsior New York -based trumpet player, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, producer, rapper, and film-maker Steven E. Mallorca 's Sulu & Excelsior Facebook page self-describes his music as " Johnny Mathis meets Mos Def meets Stevie Wonder meets Nat King Cole ...

"No question! My objective for the song and why I named it "Bakkah" is because Bakkah refers to the Kaaba in Mecca , which is considered the "House of God," in a sense. In the song though, I'm referring to how people relate to one another as being our "house" that is faulty and shaky; barely standing, but nonetheless, is," Hamilton, Ontario, Canada emcee Emay (Mubarik Gyenne Adams) wrote within an emailed statement sent exclusively to The Witzard earlier today. "This new song, "Bakkah: The History of Humankind," was initially just a poem about humanity as a whole. When it began to rhyme, I basically just ran with it. It was also a great opportunity for me to experiment with my writing, as I was always self-conscious about using a more poetic/metaphorical style of writing, so with this track I allowed myself to get completely lost in that form," Adams continued. "Bakkah" stems from his long-rumored S...

"It's very eerily current because of the horrible things that have been going on with gun violence and various shootings... We're still in process even as we speak and I don't want to really talk too much about who's in 'cause that's still kind of fluid. But it's going to happen in 2016 for sure and there's a couple of folks who have approached us, so we're going to see what the final tally's going to be. But the things I've heard so far are really, really powerful, really fiery verses, and some of the writers are responding directly [to] what happened in St. Paul, what's happening in Baton Rouge . There's a bit of that in the mix, as well as other conversations" long-time Living Colour guitarist and bandleader Vernon Reid candidly revealed to Billboard last month, in light of this year's all-too frequent police and civilian shooting epidemic. Living Colour have since recruited producer Andre Betts , Prophets of Rag...

" Fudge came together during several sessions in the summer and fall of 2015 at Nick Hook 's Green Point studio. Prefuse 73 [Guillermo Scott Herren] brought along a hard drive full of beats. [Michael] Christmas wrote to the instrumentals in the studio, and recorded the vocals the same day, as friends swung by to check it out; some of the drop-ins at the studio ended up joining in the recording, not least D.R.A.M. who brings lifted soul vocals on the album track "All Points South,'" Lex Records wrote within a comprehensive on-site Fudge press release earlier this past week. Although this is Herren's first full-length recorded alongside an emcee, he's previously worked with a number of revered Hip-Hop legends including, but not limited to Ghostface Killah , Jewel-runner El-P, Mos Def , Aesop Rock, fellow Lex label mate DOOM , GZA, Death Grips drummer Zach Hill , and RJD2; while Michael Christmas is "a 22-year-old Boston emcee, who has...

I've recently been reading Shea Serrano 's phenomenal New York Times best-selling The Rap Yearbook (a Hanukkah present from my wonderful girlfriend), in which he evaluates, ranks, and proceeds to meticulously break down "the most important rap song" from every year between 1979-2014. I would honestly, be flat out lying, if I said it hasn't largely affected the way I look at Hip-Hop singles in the grand scheme of the genre as a whole over the past few weeks; with that said, I would even go as far as to claim that Kanye 's repeatedly upped, deleted, re-upped, deleted again, etc. double-header "Real Friends & No More Parties In LA" is quite arguably the most important Hip-Hop song of 2016. Its first 3/4's, "Real Friends," was collectively produced by Kanye, Frank Dukes, Boi-1da , and Mobb Deep co-founder Havoc and features a half-sung/rapped hook delivered by Ty Dolla $ign , while its latter 1/4 was hand-crafted by Stones T...

"I was in my hotel room in Paris , and we were just chillin' and I just f*cked around and was like, 'We need to do the video while we're in Paris,'" G.O.O.D. Music -affiliated Grand Hustle emcee Travi$ Scott recently told Beats 1 DJ Zane Lowe during a phone interview while boarding a plane Friday afternoon. "Piss On Your Grave" is anchored by a fuzzed out guitar riff lifted from Jimi Hendrix -fronted Band of Gypsys' blistering Vietnam War protest jam "Machine Gun," which feels like it could have easily been a left-over from Kanye 's 2013 Aggro-Rap magnum opus, Yeezus ; funnily enough, Scott is amongst the gaggle of greenhorn beatsmiths who collectively helped produce frantic album tracks "New Slaves," "I Am a God," and "Guilt Trip." Long-time Kanye -affiliated director and photographer Nabil Elderkin was recruited to helm "Piss On Your Grave"' s ghoulish pre- Halloween visua...

It seemed lie a pretty blatant, clear-cut call to arms to me when Brooklyn rapper-turned-actor-turned-stand-up comic Yasiin Bey aka Mos Def suddenly challenged any brave three-man posse up for the challenge to a battle rap-style cypher between himself, King Los , and Roots emcee Black Thought this past weekend; "me, Black Thought , and King Los vs. anybody e'erybody... battle anybody. [...] I'm tired of these dudes pretendin' like they dope. You alright, but relax. The dope n***as that think they dope — you ain't as dope as you think. You cool, but you ain't that deal. And we don't have to make no back-and-forth corny records about it." Although, for reasons unknown, Bey has since reneged his previously-incited battle rap challenge, which happened to fit right in, in light of Drake & Meek Mill 's recent well-publicized beef. He's more of less accusing YouTube user and apparent affiliate rrvid718 of uploading said call to arms vi...

While he's remained relatively silent since releasing The Ecstatic (2009), Mos Def aka Yasiin Bey has seemingly completed his forthcoming G.O.O.D. Music "debut" while shacking up overseas. Bey has recently re-emerged from his self-imposed exile and decided to unleashed a pair of unexpected André 3000 -style features for A$AP Rocky 's At.Long.Last.A$AP as well as Eric Biddines and producer Paul White 's newly-minted Golden Ticket project. His latest presumably non-album loosie, "Marigolds" skillfully re-appropriates New Zealand -based Kiwi Funk-R&B duo Electric Wire Hustle 's 2009 self-titled album track, "Chaser." It's almost aesthetically reminiscent of Yasiin Bey 's long-aborted Top 40 Underdogs cover/freestyles initiative; wherein he boldly took on radio-friendly Kanye & Jay-Z , Lil' Wayne, and Chief Keef beats and ruthlessly flipped them on their heads. "Marigolds," on the other hand, was su...

Brooklyn veteran emcee Yasiin Bey , aka infrequent actor Dante Smith , recently "released" and 8-track video "collection" of expertly re-rapped MF DOOM covers, but BEYONDOOOM isn't exactly his first foray into Stones Throw -related material; Yasiin Bey 's 2009 album, The Ecstatic , his last record released under the Mos Def moniker, was essentially a loosely compiled Stones Throw beat tape. It's littered with cleverly re-purposed production work from the likes of Oh No , Madlib, J Dilla , Georgia Anne Muldrow, and MADVILLAIN : "Several Stones Throw artists and Stones Throw [released] instrumentals are included on Mos Def 's new album The Ecstatic , which will be released June [9th]," Stones Throw wrote in a detailed beat-oriented 2009 mini-press release. "Revelations," lifted from MADVILLAINY 2: The Madlib Remix album has very recently been used to score a 2-minute animated short created by Afrofuturism -centric graphic...

"A great US Hip-Hop singer pays tribute to Daniel Dumile , better known as MF DOOM , an other[worldly] Hip-Hop artist, from the New York City underground scene. But who's behind the mask?" French Télévision network Culturebox wrote along with a series of seven cryptic YouTube videos quietly uploaded between December-February of last year. The mysterious masked wordsmith is eventually revealed to be Yasiin Bey aka Mos Def , who's likely the only person on planet Earth who can honestly say he's worked alongside Mark Wahlberg , Donald Sutherland, Jack Black , and MF DOOM. Culturebox 's BEYONDOOM EP-length playlist isn't exactly the first time Mos Def has expressed his fanboy-like admiration for DOOM ; a few years ago, he went as far as to "bet a million dollars on DOOM against Lil' Wayne " in a battle rap scenario, supposedly masqueraded as the Metal-Faced Villain after he cancelled a series of appearances initially billed as joint ...