The Witzard

"My temple is half gun metal, other half Buddha smoke and coke sold to runnin' rebels, watch the devil," Philly -based emcee and writer Zilla Rocca ferociously quips within his latest Son Raw -produced throwback single, "98 Avirex Flow." Zilla shared a bit of information about its genesis and inception, via email: "I made this song after listening to a lot of Scaramanga 's classic album Seven Eyes, Seven Horns . I've always been a fan of Five-[percenter] Rap and I came up as an emcee in 1997-98, so I wanted to pay homage to that style. My man Son Raw sent me that beat probably 7-8 years ago and it always had that Raekwon/Terror Squad vibe to it. I never knew what to do with it, but I always wanted to use it. So, one day for fun, I thought "what would I sound like, if I wrote a straight up 1998 East Coast Rap verse?" There's some [Kool] G Rap in there, some Nas/AZ/Raekwon/Prodigy , and obviously, Scaramanga and Big Pun . I...

"I was re-watching old Mad Men episodes and I heard Don Draper say "we're the creatives—just the least important most important thing there is." And I immediately went into the studio and freestyled the first verse over that beat 'cause I was so inspired by that line... to give you more insight, I'm not a freestyle type of recording artist; usually, all of my stuff is written, then re-written, then edited, and then finalized when I record it. I picked out that beat from Small [Professor] is his apartment during a snow storm. He pitched it first to a very [well-known] rapper, who passed on it, and I snatched it up immediately," South Philly -based emcee and @RapBooklets curator Zilla Rocca wrote within a recent emailed conversation. Rocca and the self-proclaimed " smallest professor that you've seen thus far" have been friends and collaborators since 2008 and South Philly neighbors for the past 4-5 years; they're previously relea...

Anything I Touch I Bruise Vol. 2: The Superior Foes of Zilla Rocca by Zilla Rocca "Grab my remixes of every dope-a** rapper I've met in the past eight years at threedollarpistol.com ... I remix songs for the challenge; to outdo the original or make something new out of the established piece of art," @ZillaRocca wrote on his rather lively Twitter page upon the release of his latest, and might I add, wonderfully-titled, Anything I Touch, I Bruise Vol. 2: The Superior Foes of Zilla Rocca . However, oddly enough, I first stumbled upon Rocca about two weeks ago, whilst searching for a little background information concerning one of my all-time favorite Hip-Hop albums, Mos Def & Black Jack Johnson 's genre-rattling The New Danger (2004). I eventually unearthed a March 2015 ZILLA -penned Passion of The Weiss piece titled, Rework The Angles: Mos Def The New Danger ; " The New Danger was dark, scattered, and bizarre. It was also 75 minutes long [and showcases] ...