The Witzard

CREDIT: TerryTopCat "In February 2020, I was introduced to NOSAJ from New Kingdom . In a flash (three days,) we recorded a project. Hope you enjoy," reads the headline on J Fusaro aka steel tipped dove 's Projects page. We've been hearing rumblings about steel tipped dove & NOSAJ 's collaborative EP, now known as NOWNOWNOW , on Twitter for quite a few weeks. It has already been described as "Absurd Punk music" by steel tipped dove (@steeltippeddove) himself. An old Das Racist affiliate, dove has either produced, engineered, or mixed projects for a wide array of artists, including Armand Hammer , Astronautalis, Big Baby Gandhi , Darko The Super, milo/scallops hotel , safari al, billy woods , and Zilla Rocca. NOSAJ AKA Nature Boy Jim Kelly, Nosaj The Great & Jason Furlow is an emcee and producer, likely, best known for his work with 90's Psych-Rap troupe, New Kingdom . Furlow has since recorded and released music with David Byrne (Talk...

Kenosha, Wisconsin emcee Safari Al —AKA S.al, S. Al, Emmanuel Fade, Safari Al (Journeyman Hip-Hopper,) @s_afari_al, etc.—is a Ruby Yacht/Ruby Yacht Makers Guild (rbyt) affiliate and frequent milo/scallops hotel collaborator. The man also known as Alexander Kollman is, actually, a visual artist and carpenter by day with a degree in Biomedical Engineering. Safari Al has been consistently recording and releasing Hip-Hop music since about 2014 when he temporarily moved out to Los Angeles with milo; although, S.al has been quietly making music for at least eight years, having released music as part of or alongside Busdriver, The Dilla Gents, milo, Mugwampers, REDWALL , scallops hotel, WC Tank, and short-lived Folk/Hip-Hop group, MANTRAS, as well as Ruby Yacht and now-defunct Hellfyre Club. Since 2012, Safari AL has rapidly recorded, finessed, and self-released nine separate projects on his own personal Bandcamp page. In-between these aforementioned releases, S.al has appeared across m...

Milwaukee -based 91.7 WMSE 's Local Lunchbox segment fittingly describes Sahan Jayasuriya as "a Wisconsin native, who has served as drummer for a variety of Milwaukee bands over the last decade. His latest venture is a foray into sample-based beat-making under the name Cold Lunch , where he pulls from a variety of formats and music styles to create new works." Cold Lunch 's I Feel So Action "Side" of strata... is a bit more Blues/Jazz -based when compared against steel tipped dove 's I Steel of Radiance "Side." Cold Lunch 's production work throughout strata... honestly, reminds me a bit of s.al 's 2011 Soundcloud loosie, "Moanin' "—or "a throwback vibe to help the ladies and fellas start kickin' the jive"—which expertly samples Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers' 1959 track of the same name. I Feel So Action fittingly ends with a smile-evoking Cold Lunch -produced track, of course, entitle...

"I first met Zilla, barely out of college, downing bottles of malt liquor and idiotically, drunkenly throwing them into darkened stairwells at his old Catholic high school in South Philly. He was aligned his former crew then, one half of a Rap group called Clean Guns , attempting to start a fledgling label in an underground climate that seemed inhospitable and rebarbative to anyone trying to figure out what Boom-Bap would sound like 20 years in the future. Zilla could always rap and produce, but he hadn't found a voice or character that allowed him to channel what eventually reached its (27-inch) zenith on Future Former Rapper—believe it! Starting with the 5 O'Clock Shadowboxers project, he's refined an aesthetic akin to Raymond Chandler raised on Raekwon, splitting the difference between James Ellroy and Guru sneering at rivals that they're paranoid because they're sons like Elroy. One of the reasons why I started POW was to offer a wayward station for the ...

Harvey Cliff MC is a rapper, producer, singer, stand-up comedian, graphic artist/designer, and self-described "poetic polymath of vibrations, stimulations, and alternate universes," seemingly hailing from Kentucky. He's been recording and releasing his own unique band of Nerdcore Rap/Psychedelic Hip-Hop since 2015 on V-Neck Records and at some point, made his way to New York. There, he met eccentric Brooklyn-based music producer and recording engineer, Steel Tipped Dove. Harvey Cliff MC & Steel Tipped Dove first met at the now-defunct Bar4 in Brooklyn "back in the late aughts," as Cliff puts it. "He's one of the nicest and humblest dudes I know. I've been wanting to release something with him forever, so glad that it finally happened," he enthusiastically continued. Harvey Cliff is, of course, referring to his April 2018 released 8-track collaborative EP with Steel Tipped Dove, dubbed Strangers On A Train (SOAT.) Not unlike Cliff's pa...

"Steel Tipped Dove is a music producer and recording engineer in Brooklyn, NY who has the skills and desire to service your audio needs from vocal recordings, song mixing, podcasting, video scoring, etc. He has done work for Armand Hammer (billy woods & ELUCID,) Kool A.D. PremRock, Quelle Chris, SHIRT, and many more talented Underground Hip-Hop emcees. Hit him up at steeltippeddove.com . Here are three albums that were extremely influential on my overall style and sound:" cui bono by Steel Tipped Dove I. Viktor Vaughn (AKA MF DOOM) - Vaudeville Villain (2003) "This sh*t sounds like a movie. It's astonishing. I once took 'shrooms and sat in the room with the lights out and just watched DOOM walk around, go up and down these golden staircases—hitting the walls and sh*t to make the beats. The production on this album is so wild and detailed, it's incredible. If DOOM put this album out in 2025, it would feel brand new. "A Dead Mouse" really s...

Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist and rapper-producer Kassa Overall is a close affiliate of Kool A.D. and his now-defunct Hip-Hop crew Das Racist . I believe I first got in touch with Overall after discovering his stellar self-released Stargate mixtape, which featured him ferociously rapping over re-worked Katy Perry , Wiz Khalifia , and modern pop radio tracks, and he generously helped facilitate my 2011-12 interview with Victor Vazquez , otherwise known as Kool A.D. While he was previously signed to Vazquez's Greedhead off-shoot imprint Veehead , but since their disbanding, his current label situation is unknown. After years of preparation and recording, Kassa Overall is finally gearing up to release his first proper solo album consisting of entirely original production, which is tentatively titled Like Life , in the not so distant future; even though he's released countless group albums with PEACEFUL SOLUTIONS , TOOTHPASTE , and as an accomplished Jazz drummer has rec...

Antwon is a rare breed of genre-blending rapper, even in this diverse Internet Age ; The San Jose -based emcee "cut his teeth" playing bass in a number of East/West Coast Hardcore bands throughout the early 2000's. Antwon 's currently gearing up to release his fourth independent project since 2011, In Dark Denim - which is the proper follow-up to last year's critically-acclaimed END OF EARTH and his first mixtape assembled along with Greedhead (Heems') creative backing. Track #11 of 11, "Still Guarded" was unleashed post- Hump Day , just in time for your rowdy weekend festivities and roughly 2 weeks a head of In Dark Denim 's slated Valentine's Day [Feb. 14th] release. Antwon properly laces up a hazy Chillwave/Cloud Rap -tinged Cities Aviv -produced beat, which ends up sounding like a glitched out Biggie impersonation. While it doesn't even last 2 minutes, director Romoface (Uncle Dee) somehow manages to make "Still ...

I think one of the reasons that Das Racist works so well is because of the cross-section between Heems' great appreciation for Mainstream Pop melded against Kool A.D. 's desire to be weird/ Experimental . While Nehru Jackets (January) was just a bunch of Mike Finito-produced beats made from Indian samples, WILD WATER KINGDOM is slightly more commercial... almost directly influenced by post-2001 Hip-Hop : shit like The Blueprint , Dipset, Kanye , Meek Mill , and French Montana. Heems managed to hand-select some Funky "liquified" beats from Harry Fraud , Crookers, Beautiful Lou , LE1F, Steel Tipped Dove , Mike Finito, and Keyboard Kid . "I've become in touch with my astrological signs. I'm a Cancer , and I'm a Pisces Rising for my moon [sign], so I'm pretty fucking watery. I like water a lot and this past summer, I tried to be out by the beach as much as I could. I was out on the Hamptons , I was out on Martha's Vineyard , I was ou...

Ever since it's 1975-80's inception, "the struggle" has been a consistent, underlying genesis of Hip-Hop . But anymore, the originality's long gone in mainstream Hip-Hop ; These days, everyone's so manufactured and "cookie-cutter." The genre's final hope just might rest within Das Racist's collective of Brooklyn -based artists, producers, labelmen, etc. My attention was first drawn to [rapping college student] kechPhrase last Summer when he made a few original beats for Kool A.D. Since then, I've paid close attention to his career's gradual progression and I'm happy to say that we've stayed in touch throughout his blooming wave of early success. Chalking his past releases up as a test run, kechPhrase is prepping the release of 2 BIG companion projects: Slight Progress EP and Slight Progress (3rd World Dreaming) . "Can I Flow?" is the latest track from Slight Progress EP and shouts to Ikechi Nnamani for let...