The Witzard

Sa-Ra Creative Partners , or simply "Sa-Ra" for short, were an Experimental R&B/Hip-Hop super-group consisting of producers, vocalists, and multi-instrumentalists tAz "TI$A" Arnold, Shafiq Husayn & Om'Mas Keith . Sa-Ra were active from the mid-90's through the early 2000's and were super-productive, equally mysterious, and extremely fruitful and creative; throughout various points in their career, Sa-Ra Creative Partners were either signed to or affiliated with Kanye 's G.O.O.D. Music , Sony Urban Music/Epic, Babygrande Records , Ubiquity Records, ABB Soul , Sound In Color, Domino Recording Co. Jazzy Sport, Blue Note Records , Wonderful Noise Productions, and Fresh Selects . For me, personally, my favorite Sa-Ra releases were EP's Glorious + Rosebuds , Double Dutch (Co Co Pops) / Death of A Star (Supernova,) and The Second Time Around , as well as 2007 Babygrande full-length, The Hollywood Recordings . Although, Sa-Ra 's re...

As many of you may have noticed, The Witzard was temporarily shut down for about two weeks until just this past Monday. It was a nice little break, as my beautiful wife and I traveled across Italy for our "second" honeymoon and as expected, it was phenomenal! We were with a tour group and made stops in Venice, Florence, Rome, Tuscany, Assisi, Murano, and finally, Naples for Pompeii. We saw some truly gorgeous sites and had some of the best Italian food and wine I've ever had in my life; quite honestly, I think I've, essentially, "ruined" Italian food for myself here in The States for the time being, at least! While in Italy, I took a much needed break from my 'round-the-clock writing schedule here at The Witzard... but I did get a chance to listen to a few then-newly released albums and EP's while in transit. One of those select releases being Alex Ludovico & Jason Griff's collaborative SCARF TISSUE EP . It's a quick 5-track lyrical as...

DANKSLOB II & III by G-Pek & Luke Sick DANKSLOB is a mega-mix style Hip-Hop duo consisting of emcee and multi-instrumentalist Luke Sick and Gurp City affiliated producer G-Pek . Their first release was one 13-minute side of a 2014 digi-split with J-Eazy & Brycon simply entitled DANKSLOB / DAMAGED GOODS EP . Now, nearly five years later, G-Pek & Luke Sick have finally returned with their DANKSLOB II & III double-EP released on California -based imprint, Megakut Records . When asked to tell us a bit more about DANKSLOB II & III , G-Pek (@gpekbeats) stated: "Basically, me and Luke , we're making songs. They were all on some dirthead after the party is over sh*t and we were watching The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) that sh*t really spawned DANKSLOB and we just keep going... we just gurp [drink/smoke?] and record" on Twitter . If necessary, I suggest looking up both "dirthead" and "gurp" on UrbanDictionary.com —don...

Soldier by A.M. Breakups A.M. Breakups is a New Orleans/Utica/Brooklyn -based multi-media artists, Polaroid photographer, beat-twisting producer, and Chief Production Engineer at Reservoir Sound , who, also, frequently goes by Marris Mielnick , Palmer Eldritch , and sometimes, Rust Martin . A.M. has affiliations with Backwoodz Studioz , we are the karma kids, Uncommon Records , and notoriously reclusive emcee Despot . Since about 2006, A.M. Breakups has released a variety of self-produced projects on Reservoir Sound & Backwoodz Studioz , plus, as part of 11:00A.M. with MC Eleven and CULT FAVORITE with Armand Hammer & Nostrum Grocers emcee E L U C I D . Although, his last proper "studio" album was 2011's The Cant Resurrection on Backwoodz Studioz , Rust Martin has quietly been self-releasing a slew of collections on his personal Bandcamp page. Most recently and most notably, in our world, at least, A.M. Breakups has painstakingly compiled and re-relea...

Last year, we had the pleasure of premiering a Zilla Rocca -produced remix of Alpha x Scorcese 's "Untitled" Feat. Killer Mike & Pastor Troy from their 2018 collaborative effort as Gods Know , A World Only Gods Know . Now, Scorcese (@JihaDScorcese) has returned with his first proper "solo" project of 2019: A Remix Only Gods Know - SIDE A , a cleverly-titled and long-awaited 7-track remix companion EP to Alpha x Scorcese 's A World Only Gods Know . Not only does A Remix Only Gods Know feature the aforementioned "Untitled" Zilla Rocca Remix , it boasts six additional remixes from Scorcese 's Underground/Indie Rap peers, Tony Dark , Disco Vietnam, Jason Griff , Camouflage Monk, and L'Orange . "So, yeah... "THIS. IS. THE. REMIX." ( Puffy voice.) Been a long time coming, but you all can blame L'Orange ! Anyway, this was a selected [seven] remixes based on fan response," Scorcese Lorde Jones explained on Gods ...

"Tokyo-based Experimental Hip-Hop trio Dos Monos summon excitement with some truly unusual alchemy. The building blocks of their style balance the dissonance and cacophony of some very un-smooth, uncool Jazz with hyperactive verse trading between their three members. The results have quickly made them a mainstay of festivals around Japan & Europe and even landed them a mini-series on Japanese cable television, in which they both starred and scored all the music. After the release of a few singles, Dos Monos are now dropping their debut album, Dos City, on Deathbomb Arc —home to other Hip-Hop acts, such as JPEGMAFIA, clipping. and SB The Moor—in America and on bpm tokyo in Japan. The album will come out on March 20th. Two singles, both with music videos, are already out in the world for everyone to see and hear." - Deathbomb Arc (@deathbombarc) Dos City by Dos Monos I. Who are the members of Dos Monos and what is each members' role in the group? Dos Monos: 荘子...

"We've been getting a lot of questions about a collaborative album that Madlib & Mac Miller supposedly created. Here's the real story: What exists is what the two had originally intended—an EP's worth of music that was supposed to be the start of something. The end point wasn't planned out or even discussed. The idea was to create for creation's sake. The two met after Mac recorded the last verse on Freddie Gibbs' Piñata album. By early, 2015 Mac had batches of Madlib's beats and was recording songs. The two ate tacos at Eagle Rock's Cacao Mexicatessen and discussed ideas. Madlib played one of Mac's tracks in July of 2016 at a European festival and Egon texted Mac to tell him; "Whaaat, what song, why isn't there any video evidence!!!" was the reply. Followed by "Let's do an EP." This process continued throughout 2017, as Mac got the latest beat batches, continued recording, and continued his commitment to th...