The Witzard

Directly following his own Son Raw Vs. The Psychotic Hippies and stints producing The Council of The Gods' Trilogy and The Council member Nomad Carlos' "At Will," Son Raw is back with Fantasy RapBall. Son Raw's latest has been described as a re-imagining of classic Rap verses from the 90's and beyond and the answer to a question that has confounded humanity for ages: "what if we made a beat tape... but with raps?" Initially conceived over the course of 2020, Fantasy RapBall was developed as a form of wish fulfillment during the thick of The Pandemic, when proper studio collaborations were impossible and "free time" mostly meant yet another episode of The Last Dance . Fantasy RapBall by Son Raw Amidst watching clips of Michael Jordan both literally and figuratively dunking on the competition, Son Raw decided that if sports fans could cosplay as NBA & NFL coaches, he could probably grab a few Rap acapellas and mold them into new ...

MF DOOM Mixed-media Collage - GRAPHIC BY: Roy Christopher (@RoyChristopher) Honestly, it doesn't even feel like there's a proper way to elegize an eccentric and extremely talented artist such as MF DOOM, who meant so much to so many of us for so many years for so many different reasons as truly unique as DOOM himself. So, what better way to pay tribute to The Man, The Myth, THE MASK himself than by speaking to those closest to him? With a heavy heart, I proudly present Shadows of Tomorrow; a new recurring column in tribute to DOOM in an effort to re-tell the tall tales, strange stories, and lesser-known tidbits of The Metal Face Villain himself. R.I.P. Daniel "MF DOOM" Dumile Thompson. DARK SIDE OF THE DOOM by DRO CUP "Today is the day I finally get to share my visual album, DARK SIDE OF THE DOOM ([Pink] Floyd samples, DOOM bars) with you all. Pink Floyd & DOOM are two artists that have followed me around from when I was just a 10-year-old in 5th grad...

It appears as though BRAINFEEDER founder, Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist, Experimental Hip-Hop producer, DJ, villainous rapper, and film-maker Steven Ellison AKA Flying Lotus AKA Captain Murphy AKA Kuso director steve. has been doing an Ideas+drafts+loops -style purge of his old hard drives recently; Ellison has upload a staggering seven previously unreleased tracks to his Flyinglotus Soundcloud page just this past week! FlyLo first uploaded a remix of Angelo Badalamentii 's iconic "Twin Peaks Theme" and Queen -sampling "Night Grows Pale" this past Tuesday, May 16th. Then, came a whopping five tracks just one day later: Captain Murphy -helmed "Crowned," Miguel Atwood-Ferguson -assisted "LoveTrue Opening" and "LoveTrue Opening Alt1" from Alma Har'el 's 2016 Netflix film of the same name, and two mysterious left-overs from You're Dead! (2014) credited to THUNDERDETH LOTUS ... DETHKLOK -hashtagged ...

Mahatma Crowley, a friend and frequent collaborator here at The Witzard, messaged me an MP3 of "KAYFABE" a few weeks ago from a then unnamed mystery artist he had recently taken under his wing and signed to his Akashic Vibrations Records. I guess the best way I could even begin to attempt to describe Doc Savior and in-house producer Heavy Rev's unique output would be to try to imagine what Kendrick Lamar might sound like, if he were rhyming over an album full of samples culled from Black Flag's first album with frontman Henry Rollins, 1981's Damaged. Crowley generally unleashes new musical projects on various seasonal solstices and Doc Savior & Heavy Rev's Never Sleep is no different—released today, march 20th on the Spring (Vernal) Equinox. Mahatma Crowley served as Creative Director on Doc & Rev's Never Sleep, which was assembled and recorded 100% independently with Crowley coming in after its completion to handle branding and promotion. It app...

"[I] wrote this in the Fall of 2014 and recorded vocals for a demo to shop around in the bedroom June '15; tried to find another home for it, since the beat wasn't mine, but never did. Been sitting on it all this time and figure it may never see the light of day, so why not just put it out. I've never put up somebody else's beats without permission, which has always held me back. Got tons of songs written over other people's beats I don't know. Orphan rhymes. So, if [you're] mad at me FlyLo , you can find me easy," charismatic Future Islands frontman and long-time emcee Sam "Hemlock Ernst" Herring recently wrote on Soundcloud . "Bluebells Set Wet In The Moss" was released Tuesday morning without any prior murmur of release rumblings and appears to have been completed sometime between Fall 2014 and June 2015 and was in fact, skillfully freestyled over the Flying Lotus -produced beat for Captain Murphy's Earl Sweatshir...

Flying Lotus' latest Warp Records -released creation, You're Dead! features a wide array of contributions from an unlikely gamut of collaborators including Kendrick Lamar , Snoop Dogg, Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock , Angel Deradoorian, frequent collaborator Thundercat , and even Lotus' own rapping alter-ego Captain Murphy; but according to a flurry of late night Tweets the other night, for whatever reasons, additional tracks recorded with super-star guests Pharrell , Chance The Rapper, Mac Miller , and supplementary Kendrick Lamar material were ultimately scrapped. Aside from dwelling on what could have been... Flying Lotus unleashed the first Lamar-assisted single from You're Dead! , "Never Catch Me" nearly one week prior to the album's release, last Wednesday, October 1st. It's an oddly heartwarming life-affirming, death-defying clip, which only showcases a brief milli-second glimpse of Steven Ellison (Lotus) himself, who's quietly seated ...

It's been an ongoing quasi-real joke ever since season 8 of Aqua Teen Hunger Force (2011) to seemingly change the series' overall name withe each impending new season: Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1 , Aqua Something You Know Whatever, and now Aqua TV Show Show ha. Replacing the show's original, long-standing Schoolly D-penned title sequence, Brainfeeder buddies Flying Lotus & Thundercat have teamed up to produce a Jazz -infused 45-second "Aqua TV Show Show Theme." @flyinglotus recently Tweeted, " Frylock lookin' like @GASLAMPKILLER in the intro... [and that] The ending credits music is on some Silver Apples -isnpired shiieee." Thundercat 's actual role is widely unknown at this pint, but the infamous Suicidal Tendencies metal-head more than likely continued some scorchin' bass licks! The ATSS theme sequence is of course accompanied by a black-and-white 70's Soul-Funk -reminiscent animated clip; It stars Frylock, Master Shak...

Have you ever heard of one of those couples that've been "romantically involved" for FOREVER and have a couple kids together, only to finally get married 10-15 years later? Well, that's basically the kinda relationship El-P & Killer Mike have; 2 long-time rapper/producer friends who have been working together for years, released a joint R.A.P. Music album last year, and have finally locked down an official, albeit LL Cool J- inspired group name: Run The Jewels . While preparing their self-titled street album [mixtape] debut, Run The Jewels have teamed up with Adult Swim & Williams Street Records to unleash a glitched-out new single, "36" Chain." It's the first in a series of 15 weekly digital singles, which this year, is set to feature choice cuts from... Lil B , kitty pryde, Marnie Stern , Madlib & Freddie Gibbs, Lightning Bolt , Dan Deacon, Captain Murphy , Miguel, Pig Destroyer(?) , and more! Karriem Riggins , Viktor Vaughn [M...

While he's arguably years past his heyday, Marshall "Eminem" Mathers really set the stage for white-bred rappers and seems to have inspired a whole new generation's-worth of angry young white men: Atmosphere , Macklemore, RiFF RAFF , Asher Roth , Mac Miller, Action Bronson , etc. Mac Miller just never really seemed interesting enough for me to wanna check out. But it looks like he's starting to align himself with a slew of genuinely skilled rappers/producers that includes Earl Sweatshirt , Ab-Soul, Freddie Gibbs , Hodgy Beats, ScHoolboy Q , Thundercat, Pharrell , and executive producer Diplo. Mac Miller 's become a lot more interesting since he started releasing material under his assorted Larry Fisherman , Larry Dollaz, and Larry Lovestein & The Velvet Revival aliases, too. We're talkin' about beautiful Bright Eyes and Elliott Smith covers, hard-hitting Hip-Hop beats, a 5-track Jazz EP, and an instrumental mixtape called Run-on Sentences (...

"The Ritual" is the latest released track from mysterious and already infamous rapper, Captain Murphy , who's true identity is still largely unknown - Even with 3 pretty STELLAR tracks nestled under his belt this early! Murphy first appeared with a brief verse on Flying Lotus' second Adult Swim single, "Between Friends;" Since it's July 23rd release, Captain Murphy 's identity has quickly become quite the "hot topic" across Hip-Hop ... He may or may not be a cleverly-crafted alter ego of either Flying Lotus , Earl Sweatshirt , or Tyler, The Creator . This whole mystery ego thing really reminds me of Quasimoto, King Geedorah , and even Humpty Hump [1990]. While "The Ritual" actually swiped it's primary beat from "Dear Moleskine" (Jay Electronica) , his other 2 tracks: "Mighty Morphin' Foreskin" and "Between Friends" seem to be [mostly] original compositions. iTunes' Info section s...