The Witzard

Gabe 'Nandez is an extremely talented New York-based emcee who has been closely aligned with Passion of The Weiss founder Jeff Weiss' POW Recordings since before 2017. 'Nandez has been regarded as a child of DOOM & DMX, whose parents worked in diplomacy, so he grew up moving around often, temporarily living in Tanzania, Haiti, and Jerusalem, as well as New York City. Gabe 'Nandez's latest EP, simply titled Ox, is being framed as a tribute to the spirit of Ruff Ryders. POW initially released 'Nandez's 2017 cassette compilation album Plaques and soon after, released his proper full-length debut, Diplomacy , to widespread critical and fan acclaim over the summer of 2019. Since then, Gabe 'Nandez has quietly issued a number of singles, EP's, loosies, etc. sometimes, self-released, sometimes, with POW Recordings, and, sometimes, on a variety of other Indie labels, such as Stereoma and Epidemic Sound , namely, for his guitar-fueled 2020 EP, Grove. ...

Internet -spun legend had to that Chief Keef discovered Polish beat-maker Young Ravisu (Radoslaw Sobieraj) himself in later 2012-13 while perusing YouTube for " Finally Rich -type beats;" after some additional mixing, paperwork, and legal mumbo-jumbo, Young Ravisu 's instrumental slowly morphed into "Citgo." The 2 like-minded 18-year-olds' collaboration eventually ended up appearing as a bonus track on Chief Keef 's commercial debut, Finally Rich . Before this piece goes too far, let me just say that I'm far from a Chief Keef expert/super-fan: I'm really only familiar with him through his Kanye -affiliated tracks, "I Don't Like" (Remix) and more recently, "Hold My Liquor" with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) . Now, nearly 8+ months after it's initial release, "Citgo" has been re-hashed as a proper video-single, more or less. A mere coincidence or not, GBE Ent. also unleashed a 16-track mixtape, Bang P...

DMX has either gone completely bat-shit CRAZY or caught an early strain of Holiday Spirit . But I'm just gonna go a head and run with option #1 since in recent years, DMX has gotten locked up, collaborated with Swizz Beatz , picked up a nasty coke habit, and appeared on a couple D-grade celebrity "reality shows." Whatever the case may be, DMX performed a rapped-sung version of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" LIVE on Power 105.1 Monday morning; It kinda ended up sounding like a schoolyard cypher... complete with hand drum/desktop 1-2 beat and plenty of grizzly-voiced adlibs - WHAT's , COME ON's, and FOREVER's thrown in for extra emphasis. All I know is that mid-90's Ruff Ryders DMX would've whooped this guy's ass, but it's still a highly amusing holiday cover nonetheless. I'm assuming he probably put out a new album semi-recently, but whether or not you wanna risk it and buy a copy is TOTALLY on [up to] you.

During the height of his mid-90's heyday, Fiend chalked up studio time with both No Limit Records (Master P) and Ruff Ryders Ent. (DMX) . But the man AKA Ricky "International" Jones now calls Curren$y 's micro-label, Jet Life Recordings homebase. I was first turned onto Fiend about a year or 2 ago with Tom Breihan 's Stereogum entrance post; Breihan's future posts would chronicle Fiend 's cleverly-executed sample flips of The Specials and Washed Out originals. While Fiend somehow managed to record and release roughly 6 mixtapes between 2011-12, he's remained un-characteristically silent throughout the latter 1/2 of this year. "Wonderful" was quietly released Tuesday afternoon and features a Funky RJ2 beat and a guest verse from Jet Life labelhead, Curren$y . I'm not really sure where this one'll eventually end up, but let's hope that a Fiend/Jet Life mixtape materializes "sooner than later!"