The Witzard

Despite, or maybe even because of, the fact that critically-acclaimed Queens emcee Despot has yet to release his oft-delayed, nearly 10 years in-the-making debut, We're All Excited , he's somehow still able to "rub shoulders" and get a casual Sunday brunch with industry heavyweights like Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig and 21-22 Jump Street leading man, Jonah Hill . Fresh on the heels of his recent Evan "E*VAX" Mast -produced lead single lifted from his seemingly soon forthcoming album, Despot has unleashed his "first" proper music video for "House of Bricks;" although, he's previously appeared on film alongside Mr. Muthaf**kin' eXquire , Das Racist, Vampire Weekend , a pre- Run The Jewels El-P & Killer Mike , Sky Ferreira, Chromeo , and Santigold. "Me and Evan [Mast] have been talking about this album since I met him, so we have hypothetically been working on this album for close to 10 years... Most of th...

Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig has had a pretty buzz-worthy year; having appeared on genre-blending tracks with Major Lazer , SBTRKT, Chromeo , @Seinfeld2000 , and even a duet with Karen O on the Her soundtrack. Koenig's latest outer-band activity includes a Twitter -esque "rapped-sung" verse on new-comer iLoveMakonnen 's Red Bull Music -backed "Down 4 So Long" Remix , which was released over the weekend along with 1,000 free downloads as part of their 20 Before 15 singles series. " @iLoveMakonnen5D and @despotroast (Despot) could both put out greatest hits albums and neither one has ever made an album," @arzE Koenig affectionately Tweeted about his fellow collaborators and new-found buddies upon "Down 4 So Long"' s release. Koenig and Despot 's appended verses add an air of fun and familiarity to Makonnen 's "Down 4 So Long," which is reportedly about the accidental shooting death of his high scho...

It all starts out innocently enough, at a Road House -stye "dive bar" that's seemingly located out in the middle of the desert; Dave 1 seductively croons, "if you think romance is dead and gone, found an old jukebox full of 45's, pop a nickle in it, and it all comes back to me" at "Old 45's" gorgeous dark-haired protagonist. Chromeo multi-instrumentalist P-Thugg can be seen seated by himself up at the bar, where our leading lady eventually settles, and in certain frames, sisters Danielle, Este & Alana Haim are seated alongside Dave 1 in a booth. "You know what? I tried out these new pants. I didn't think I'd like 'em... thought they'd be a little bit too tight. But hey, I'll tell ya... I kinda like the way they grip me," laments our cocktail-pouring bartender, right before a sensual bar-top dance routine suddenly breaks out. And before too long, yet another dance routine erupts, as the lights dim down an...

Los Angeles sister act HAIM have indeed dabbled with Hip-Hop in the past, whether it be nearly getting recruited as A$AP Rocky 's backing band or appearing on genre-blending Kid Cudi and Childish Gambino tracks... But now they've enlisted rising A$AP Mob emcee, A$AP Ferg to append a ferocious add-on verse to their Days Are Gone album stand-out, "My Song 5." It's not entirely unlike a visual Where's Waldo? of seemingly everyone Danielle, Este & Alana Haim have encountered or befriended while on the road over the last couple years; featured emcee A$AP Ferg , Ke$ha, Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig , Grimes, Big Sean , SNL comedian Vanessa Bayer, Mama & Papa Haim , producer Ariel Rechtshaid, and even "Artemis" from It's Always Sunny . Leading up to it's Tuesday afternoon release, @HAIMtheband's long-rumored "My Song 5" video was subtly teased with cleverly edited 90's screen-grabs from Sally Jessy Ra...

"did a song with @SBTRKT called "NEW DORP, NEW YORK" - listen 2 the radio 1 rip if u like" Columbia scholar @arzE Koenig Tweeted late Tuesday afternoon. The mysterious masked London -based producer has been hinting at the follow-up to his critically-acclaimed self-titled 2011 LP for quite some time now and recently released a series of mid-album Transitions EP's . Wonder Where We Land will see a wide release on Young Turks this forthcoming September 22-23rd; SBTRKT has recruited his frequent collaborators Sampha and Jessie Ware along with Chairlift songstress Caroline Polachek , A$AP Ferg, Warpaint , Denai Moore, Koreless , Raury, and Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig . The aforementioned Koenig-featuring track, "NEW DORP, NEW YORK," serves as the album's lead/teaser single; it's a weirdly fitting modern mash-up of Post-Dubstep break-beats and a slightly re-tooled infamous line cherry-picked from "Ballroom Blitz" (...

"I asked your boss for your number. I never wondered which way it would go. You woke me up from my slumber. Now let me break your work flow. It's not a lot, but all I wanna do is skip town on a weekend with you. There's still so much to discover There's still a lot we don't know," read a recent suspiciously rhythmic-sounding Craigslist missed connections posting. It's actually a thinly veiled album release announcement for Chromeo 's new album, " White Women (title) 05-12-14 (date) - m4w," which also includes the Retro-80's album artwork. The FADER dually notes that the address listed with the posting, 701 1st Ave. N , was actually the location of First Avenue , Prince 's favourite hometown Minneapolis venue, where Purple Rain 's concert sequences were filmed. White Women , a self-described Larry David Funk album, is rumored to house a few choice cuts assisted by frequent collaborator Solange , Toro Y Moi, Vampire Weekend...

Just mere minutes before the stroke of 12 midnight New Year's Eve 2013-14, @vampireweekend Tweeted out a pretty self-explanatory mini-message: " wintertime remix of "Step" featuring Danny Brown, Heems & Despot . Happy New Years from Vampire Weekend ," along with a smarturl hyper-link. It's the kinda thing that probably shouldn't work anywhere near as well as it actually does, and I'd guess that this is your typical Pitchfork staff writer's ideal wet-dream collabo scenario ha. "Step" (Wintertime Remix) builds off frontman Ezra Koenig 's original, penned for Modern Vampires of The City and acts as the B-side to lead single, "Diane Young" [see below]. When juxtaposed against Koenig's past relationship reminiscing lyrics, Danny Brown, Heems & Despot manage to fit in surprisingly well with "Step"' s running theme. While the track's supposedly based off an unreleased and re-purposed Sou...

Childish Gambino (aka Donald Glover ) hasn't really released much new material since unleashing last year's feature-heavy Camp follow-up mixtape, ROYALTY . But it sounds like the former Community star is planning to unveil what will likely be a new full-length mixtape [or album?], because the internet , "this winter break;" and if @DonaldGlover's Twitter feed is to be believed, it just might house collaborative tracks with buddies Kid Cudi , Flying Lotus, and Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend), as well as his other recent web-single, "Centipede." because the internet 's latest rumored inclusion, "Yaphet Kotto" (freestyle) was uploaded to Gambino's Soundcloud page roughly a week ago. Preceded only by a Skylar-White -drowning- Breaking-Bad -like teaser trailer, "Yaphet Kotto" showcases Childish Gambino blatantly addressing his detractors: "Worst rapper to ever spit on an open mic / Worst rapper to ever get on so...

Well, this is quite easily the coolest impromptu event I've seen or heard happen in mainstream music in quite some time; Dusting off any pre-concieved notions of banjo-aided Bluegrass or College Rock labeling, frontman Marcus Mumford recruited a couple of friends to help his band, Mumford & Sons , perform a spirited cover of The Beatles/Joe Cocker 's two-headed hit, "With a Little Help from My Friends" at Glastonbury last night. Mumford's posse was effectively joined on stage by Ezra Koenig and 2 additional members of Vampire Weekend, The Vaccines, First Aid Kit, Staves , and a few more musically-inclined buddies. Mumford & Sons seem to have modeled their call-and-response cover after Cocker's Soul -drenched 1968 rendition, which I first heard on The Wonders Years as a kid... not even knowing it was a Beatles song 'til years later! The original "With a Little Help from My Friends" is of course, comfortably nestled within The Be...

Following a largely un-fullfilled search for a copy of Modern Vampires of The City that aimlessly led me across Cumberland County , I realized that aside from 2-3 well-executed lyric videos, Vampire Weekend have yet to release a proper music video in support of their new album; Whilst still grabbing headlines by torching a couple Saab 900's and hanging out with "distant second cousin" Steve Buscemi , the New York -based band finally unleashed a "Diane Young" video Monday morning. Continuing a long-standing trend that started with "Giving Up The Gun" (2010), director Primo Kahn somehow managed to recruit a very interesting cast of characters: Chromeo , Dave Longstreth (Dirty Projectors), Sky Ferreira , Despot , Santigold, Hamilton Leithauser (The Walkmen), and a ski-masked man that just might be cameraman Kahn himself. What starts out looking mysteriously like a modern-day Last Supper slowly morphs into a righteous "dinner party where g...

Vampire Weekend successfully managed to engage car enthusiasts nation-wide after torching 2 Saab 900's for use in their "Diane Young" [promo] video; It's unclear what kind of condition the cars were in when Vampire Weekend 's team acquired the used vehicles. The Internet -savvy gearheads @ Jalopnik even penned a heated article titled "Vampire Weekend Are a Bunch of Dicks," which essentially calls out the band. Refuting claims that the 2 Saabs were sold under sketchy circumstances and "torched like a pile of leaves," frontman Ezra Koenig blessed Spinner with quite a few choice words/quotes: "I want people to understand that we do respect cars and the last thing we want to do is to fuck up a collector's item or something like that. Hopefully people believe me when I say that our record label was trying to purchase the cheapest, oldest cars possible; They weren't trying to buy a beautiful perfect condition car." Koeni...

Without sounding like a TOTAL Hipster douchebag , which I can honestly assure you I am NOT.... I can vividly remember downloading Vampire Weekend 's self-leaked 2007 demo tape and burning it onto a Blue CD-R before anybody else even knew about them! Vampire Weekend are "Tribal -infused" in the same sense that The Police were a "Reggae" band , riddim [rhythm] and Funky melodies; Evenly spread across their then upcoming self-titled debut record, Vampire Weekend somehow managed to find a way to seamlessly blend Indie Rock , Pop sensibility, "Yacht Rock," Punk Rock ideologies, Tribal drums, keen fashion sense, and a wide variety of assorted influences. The band's follow-up, Contra (2010) is most def one of my favourite albums of the past 10 years and while it's chock-full of instantly catchy hit jams, nothing beats "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa!" Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij, Chris Baio & Chris Tomson took a little break b...