The Witzard

"Jaubi is a collective of musicians hailing from Lahore, Pakistan who aim to create whatever sounds good and whatever feels good. The emphasis is on amalgamating different musical styles such as Indian Classical music, Jazz, and Hip-Hop into short musical pieces," producer, guitarist, and kalimba player Ali Riaz Baqar wrote within a recent emailed statement. Jaubi (جو بھی) is an urdu word, which roughly translates to "whatever;" a sentiment that has directly influenced their band mantra of "creating whatever sounds good and whatever feels good." I recently stumbled upon Jaubi while researching for a then as-yet-unpublished interview with Basement Donuts mastermind and She's So Rad frotnman Jeremy Toy. Stones Throw wrote, within their piece titled LEONARD CHARLES - BASEMENT DONUTS - J DILLA TRIBUTE: "our friend DJ Mehdi, who passed away in 2011, was among the first to create a whole album inspired by Donuts, his 2006 mixtape Loukoums. The Roots g...

"Now, the vocal album – that is something that I know [J Dilla] had a desire to see out, as he did Ruff Draft and, oddly enough, an album he'd made of noodling improvised keyboard lines over drum breaks (one of those made it to The Shining album)," Now-Again Records founder and former Stones Throw General Manager Eothen "Egon" Alapatt revealed when asked about Dilla's planned post-Donuts releases; to the best of my knowledge, Vintage Vibez Music Group 's sprawling 41-track Dillamatic album isn't in fact said "improvised noodling keyboard lines over drum breaks album." It is however, being billed as The Electronic Age of J Dilla , which was seemingly preceded by his "hard-edged, synth-heavy tracks crafted fro Busta Rhymes , Jaylib [with Madlib], Oh No , and Phat Kat." Detroit 's finest neck-snapping rapper-producer James "J Dilla" Yancey aka Jay Dee is still somehow releasing mass amounts of posthumous musi...

"You are the last Colbert Report musical guest. Honored to have you on, but keep in mind: Paul McCartney , R.E.M., Jack White , and Nas were your opening acts," Stephen Colbert cleverly quipped at Kendrick Lamar during their pre-performance interview on last night's show. Lamar premiered a brand new "Untitled" track reportedly produced by French beatsmith Astronote ; its world-premier performance was delivered by a pick-up band consisting of bass virtuoso Thundercat , Terrace Martin on sax, and back-up vocals from Soulquarians affiliate Bilal and Sonnymoon sogstress Anna Wise . In stark contrast to Kendrick Lamar 's previous Isley Brothers -indebted "i," "Untitled" is more of a sparse experimental, Jazz -leaning affair, which seems to be a multi-faceted narrative; "In Lamar's story, an Asian man tells him to worry about his health and not his career, an Indian man recommends he invest in real estate, the black man rev...

Meticulously chopping and re-pasting samples pulled from Rene Costy , Fred Wesley & The J.B.'s , and Jacques Delon, "Fuck The Police" came out @ a pivotal time during J Dilla 's blossoming career... between his transition from Soulquarians producer to rapping emcee. Nearly 6 years after Dilla 's untimely passing, J.Rocc released a re-work of "F--- The Police" earlier this afternoon, which ends up cleanly editing down the track's lyrical content; Candidly stating via Soundcloud , "Here's a snippet of a little something that I was working on. Played this out a few times and it's CRACKIN' !!" While he adds that the full version of his "Police" (re-work) might never even see the light of day, J.Rocc is currently prepping the release of yet another edits collection: The Minimal Waves Tapes - Edits, Vol 1 & 2 . His semi-recent mixed genre album, Some Cold Rock Stuf and it's companion EP, Mystery Tracks ...