The Witzard

NOGAF by Felipe Pupo Genre-eschewing Philly rapper, producer, and graphic designer Erik "E." Grizzly has returned with the latest single from his self-described "Synth-Calypso-Punk" experiment-turned-band, Felipe Pupo . "NOGAF" seamlessly blends Afrobeat , Punk, Hip-Hop , Calypso, Hardcore , and other miscellaneous genres that don't generally, belong together, much like E. Grizzly 's 2016 Felipe Pupo full-length. First, started out as a Scott Labenski -produced solo project from E. Grizzly , Felipe Pupo has now, morphed into a proper genre-less quartet featuring E. Grizzly on vocals and keys, along with Labenski on guitar, bassist Aaron Gross , and drummer Carl "Sha'ron" Scott . E. Grizzly 's A-Ha! Records has joined forces with Darko The Super 's U DONT DESERVE THIS BEAUTIFUL ART (UDDTBA) imprint to release Felipe Pupo 's new EP and first as a full-fledged band, ORISHAS . "NOGAF," which stands for ...

"When you're a DIY musician/producer, you do everything; you write the songs, you record, you compose, produce, and mix. I look at production as a finished product, not just a beat to sell to an emcee. And really, I don't sell beats. I produce my own albums and EP's . It's so time-consuming that it's hard to do it for someone else, unless I'm a huge fan. But when I first started making music back when I was a wee-lad, I had these cliché ideas of how an album is produced. I was an emcee, so I needed beats and I started sampling. It was pretty simple stuff. Mostly, a couple samples chopped and Copied together as a few loops on Reason . Then, I would put a drum beat on it; either Reason drum sounds or drums I sampled, chopped, and Copied together. There's certain albums that helped change my whole perspective about production, though. These aren't my favorite albums, but they definitely influenced how I make music." Mannequin Eater by MANIK|NE...

Felipe Pupo by E. Grizzly " E. Grizzly is a progressive Hip-Hop artist from Philadelphia, PA specializing in a philosophical, poetic flow similar to Mos Def , Kendrick Lamar, Anderson.Paak , and Zach de la Rocha. The point of E. Grizzly 's brand of music is to share new perspectives and challenge social standards accepted by the majority of society," reads the intro to E. Grizzly 's press BIO fittingly titled, The Synth Calypso Punk Experiment . Now, many of you may recognize Erik "E." Grizzly 's name from a few recent posts published right here within the pages of The Witzard : he designed an impressive zombified Breakfast Club show flyer for The Punk Rap Show held on May 6th, which I used as artwork for a recent MANIK|NETER EP write-up (as well as my lock screen background!) E. Grizzly was also included within a photo of what's very recently been dubbed the "Philly Squad," which includes—in addition to Grizzly himself— Darko Th...