The Witzard

Hell yes, believe it or not (oh, you better believe it!) beatboxing is still alive and well in 2022. If you don't believe us, go check out The Best of Max Bent & Stan Ipcus: He's The Beatboxer, I'm The Rapper. It's a sprawling nine-track collection that spans 25 years of organic D.I.Y. beats and rhymes collaborative efforts between two life-long friends, Stan Ipcus & Max B. Human Beatboxer Max Bent and seasoned emcee Stan Ipcus have been performing and recording together since the late 90's when they were both students and aspiring musicians at The University of Maryland (UMD.) They, literally, met on-air in 1998 during a live freestyle session broadcast on college radio station, WMUC, when Max was beatboxing for a room full of rappers and Stan Ipcus stepped up to the mic to flex his skills. The audio recording of that WMUC moment—plus, eight other Max Bent & Stan Ipcus beatbox/emcee collaborations spanning almost 25 years—is included on this new Bes...

ZAIRISMS (vol 1) by Ila Zair Since conducting and publishing our 2016 Deconstructed Ego-centric interview, I've been in contact with Jaubi guitarist and producer Ali Riaz Baqar every couple weeks; he's been painstakingly writing, recording, and meticulously re-arranging his Hip-Hop-minded solo debut as Ila Zair ("Ali Riaz" backwards.) While Ali Riaz Baqar has been fine-tuning his premier release, Jaubi's The Deconstructed Ego EP has garnered wide-spread acclaim from the likes of Bandcamp Daily , Beat Tape Co-Op, Flea Market Funk, Music Is MY Sanctuary, and Stones Throw. With their Astigmatic Records-released EP, Jaubi have single-handedly introduced the Hip-Hop-loving world to a unique brand of Experimental Pakistani Instrumental Hip-Hop, largely due to their critically-acclaimed cover of J Dilla's "Time: The Donut of The Heart." I've personally heard at least three different versions of Baqar's self-produced beat tape, which through the m...

Throw.sTones by Turkish Dcypha Turkish Dcypha is a producer and multi-genre DJ hailing from the UK , who co-owns a small boutique (or Indie ) record label called Dcypha Productions , which was founded by fellow producer Sway DaSafo around 2004 under Akon 's Konvict Muzik imprint. Turkish Dcypha has released a multitude of projects remixing and re-working the likes of Prince , Kanye, 2pac , Biggie, and JAY-DILLA ( Jay Z over J Dilla beats,) as well as his own instrumental music and original production work for Awate and Mr. Bigz . Turkish can count Yasiin Bey , DJ Premier, actor Idris Elba , and J Dilla's Estate amongst his famous fans; "Actually, I was listening to this kid Awate recently. You know him? He’s from Eritrea , I think, but now in London . It's produced by Turkish [Dcypha.] His beats are old school and very influenced by Dilla , Pete Rock , etc. I was super impressed..." Elba gushed within a 2014 taste-making interview with Noisey . I re...

"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...

Canadian producer Marco Polo 's currently putting the finishing touches on Newport Authority 2 [mixtape], which 2dopeboyz describes as, ""Legendary emcees on beats by Marco Polo " series with samples that were impossible to clear." He recruited the talents of seasoned lyrical assassin, Big Daddy Kane for "Night & Day." Marco Polo somehow managed to flip a sample pulled from Al B. Sure! 's cheese-tastic New Jack Swing/R&B hit, "Nite and Day" (1988); What ensues next are 3 hard-hitting, age-appropriate verses fit for a 44-year-old rapper. I've transcribed a few of Big Daddy Kane 's sharp-tongued bars for the purposes of this here post: "You in your zone, tricking on Patron / with more shots of silver than a werewolf... Shit, baby girl, you said you don't feel appealing. Them breasts ain't looking pirky no more / Them dudes ain't acting thirsty no more." Newport Authority 2 is set to feature ...

I was gonna write up something about Lil B & Joey Bada$$ 's Twitter -fueled Rap beef that went down last night. But after a quick 1-2 punch/mediocre track release, that one had already fizzled out by daybreak Wednesday morning. Man, Hip-Hop sure as Hell isn't what it used to be; So, it's a good thing there are still groups like CZARFACE that manage to keep 90's Boom-Bap traditions alive! Inspectah Deck, 7L & Esoteric first linked up for the "Speaking Real Words" 12" (1999) and finally ended up reuniting now, some 14 years later. "We are CZARFACE because they know our faces and they know us for being dope rhyme suppliers, like Tony Montana we are known for our balls and our word; Lyrically we will conquer the world and everything in it," Inspectah Deck began to vividly detail in a press release ... "CZARFACE is a vigilante. He's and anti-hero character who serves as the face of the project and his focus is on annihil...

The go-to phrase has always been, "Party like a Rockstar," but in recent months, I've almost learned that rappers party even HARDER! In a unique promotional effort for their upcoming film, the people behind Project X teamed up with Vice Records ... producing a series of short animated YouTube clips dubbed, "PARTY LEGENDS." Delicately sub-titled as "an oral history of absolute insanity," a handful of colorful rappers/actors have re-told the tales of their craziest party-fueled experiences. Precursed by the likes of Snoop Dogg , A-Trak , and Tyler The Creator _ Nas is the latest rhymesmith to present his own f*cked up story. He proceeds to lay down the details behind some random Queens[bridge] "kegger" gone terribly wrong, which was then re-re-animated by Jesse McLaren . It's nice to hear these generally "HARD" [tough] rappers mellow out a bit and tell some fun-loving stories! Tales that I bet we can all relate, even if on...

"Concrete Waves" is just one of those songs that's wildly catchy right off the bat! You know that you like it. But also know that you'd really be hard-pressed when asked "Why?" Kendra Morris is poised to become the next short-term Queen of Soul Pop Music; A genre initially spearheaded by the late-great, Amy Winehouse . Since "Throwback Soul" 's early-mid 2000's inception, many young songstresses have decided to jump aboard: Lily Allen, Duffy , Ke$ha, Sharon Jones, Janelle Monáe , Adele, Miss Jack Davey, Lana del Rey ... and now, Wax Poetics' very own Kendra Morris . Kendra Morris was born and raised along the coast of Florida to 2 musically-inclined parents. So, it was frankly no surprise to anyone that she grew up to be a Soulful -voiced little young lady. Morris made "The BIG Move" to New York City around 2003, where she proceeded to record bedroom [closet] recordings onto an 8-track . Those very recordings would re...

Live instrumentation is essentially the elementary basis for nearly any and all Hip-Hop compositions; Whether it be sample source(d) material or the interpolation [re-creation] of said raw audio. During a time period in which Hip-Hop was proclaimed "dead" (2006-10), groups like Will Sessions have since re-invigorated a sense of new-found life into the genre as a whole. Will Sessions are an 8-10 musician deep Detroit crew fronted by trumpeter, Sam Beaubien . Making good use of a full-bodied "throwback" sound, which features drums, bass, guitar... in addition to trumpet, keys, sax, trombone, and percussion. Since forming as a solo endeavor in 2007, Will Sessions has progressively morphed into something much larger and greater. Live in concert, they've moonlighted as The Guilty Simpson, Black Milk , and Phat Kat Big Band(s) ... Plus having separately logged studio-time with the likes of Elzhi , Mayer Hawthorne , Slum Village, 14K, Black Milk , and Buff1 . R...