The Witzard

Biz Markie Ink Illustration (CREDIT: Dan Lish @danlish1) Marcel Theo Hall, better know as Biz Markie and oftentimes, affectionately referred to as The Biz, The Clown Prince of Hip-Hop, The Inhuman Orchestra, The Diabolical Biz Markie, and The Emizah-Emizah, was highly revered as one of the most genuine emcees to ever do it. Biz passed away on Friday, July 16, 2021 at the tender age of 57, likely due to complications from Type 2 Diabetes, although, no official Cause of Death has been revealed just yet. Biz Markie is most well-known for his infectious 1989 break-out single, "Just A Friend," but he was a truly multi-talented artist, as well. Biz Mark's lesser-known talents included beat-boxing, dancing, producing, DJ'ing, acting, singing, and song-writing. It was proven time and time again that "Nobody Beats The Biz," but he surely didn't mind collaborating with just about anyone; racking up genre-defying features with everyone from the Beastie Boys to...

"The new Wu-Tang EP is kind of boring. So, in response, I made my own "Wu-Tang EP" with all of their collabs/remixes with Madlib, who has surpassed RZA ten-fold: Wu-Tang Clan x Madlib - The Wu Digger ... Madlib is what you get, if RZA just keep sitting in a room full of records from '95 until today. "And Madlib is who RZA would have been, if he could just learn instruments when he felt like it," Small Professor (@smallpro)... On some real sh*t, Madlib's remix of "Black Boy" by [Cappadonna] is better than almost any [Wu-Tang Clan] track this decade by any Wu member. These guys have access to any producer on the planet and act like Madlib or Alchemist don't exist." - Zilla Rocca (@ZillaRocca) Wu-Tang Clan & Madlib - The Wu Digger Playlist/EP (Tracklist) 01. Cappadonna - "Black Boy" (Madlib Remix) from Madlib Medicine Show #12: Raw Medicine [2011] 02. Method Man - "Uh Huh" (Madlib Remix) from MIND FUSION ...

Shawn Johnson is a multi-talented artist, who makes digital art and videos, as well as Instrumental Hip-Hop . For his digital art efforts, Shawn goes by @oldsoulbrother AKA NEKTR (@SHONJART) and has released music, over the years, as Shon J. Mr.J with Mr. Backside, OLD SOUL with Optimus Prime , and as part of Hip-Hop/Rock band, NOGENRE559 with affiliation to The Natural High, Amajin Records , and Alpha Force . Shawn Johnson has worked with and created Cut-and-Paste-esque music videos for The Witzard mainstay Purple Dialect , Slum Village emcee T3, Westside Gunn & Conway affiliate Benny The Butcher , J-Zone & Pablo Martin's The Du-Rites, Ali Miller FKA Truck North (The Roots,) K.A.A.N. and Lance Skiiiwalker . I've previously spoken with Shawn Johnson concerning his work on Purple Dialect 's "Cocoa" video, as well as Shon J & Mr. Backside 's 32-track Mr.J beat tape; however, in recent months, Shawn has been mentioning a number of hig...

earlytwothousands by Drew Scott Baltimore -based producer and beat-maker Drew Scott had quite a big year in 2018: first and foremost, he got married to his long-time partner and frequent collaborator, Pale Spring . Congrats to Drew & Emily ! Musically, Drew unleashed CRITTER from his "Basement" Pop alter-ego, Giddeon Gallows , as well as remixes from Butch Dawson , HI$TO, and Infinity Knives . Now, Drew Scott has effectively returned with his first proper release of 2019—something I've been hearing about for a while now— earlytwothousands ; just as it sounds, is an 8-track collection of early 2000's Hip-Hop remixes "featuring" Snoop Dogg , 50 Cent, Juelz Santana , Clipse & Pharrell, Ghostface Killah , T.I. Lil' Wayne , and JAY-Z. "It was just something I've been wanting to do. I was a teenager when these songs came out, which was around the same time I first started making beats," Drew Scott told The Witzard , via email. ...

Wu-Tang Clan emcee Ghostface Killah and Internet personality Big Ghost Ltd AKA Cocaine Biceps AKA The Illustrious Thor Molecules AKA The Infamous Galaxy Knuckles AKA Shampoo Bracelets The Panty-melter AKA The Mighty Hands of Zeus , believe it or not, have a long, strange history together. In his earliest aughts as a sh*t-talking writer/music critic around 2010-11, Big Ghost (then- Big Ghostface ) was actually, widely believed to be Ghostface Killah ; due in part to his 2011 Ayo The Top 10 Softest N****s In The Game! AKA GHOSTFACE KILLAH: TOP 10 SOFTEST RAPPERS IN THE GAME list. Ghostface Killah AKA Tony Starks AKA Ironman AKA Pretty Toney AKA Starky Love AKA The Wallabee Champ AKA Ghost Deini/Ghostdini AKA Sun God has continually released strong solo efforts and has been my personal favorite Wu-Tang swordsmen for the last 15+ years. Ghost was one of the first Wu-Tang/Killa Beez emcees to work with outside producers and in recent years, has worked with Apollo Bro...

"After /r/jimmyjrg created those stems of MF DOOM, I knew I had to follow up SADEVILLAIN with a [sequel] and this is exactly what I've done. I've had nothing but free time on my hands and went right to work on this project. The amount of recognition of the first tape got was insane, it was incredibly overwhelming and I still thank everyone who has listened to it," Seanh AKA clerksfanboy AKA Snh AKA @TheSeanh2k11 recently wrote within an /r/MFDOOM Subreddit titled I Present to You... SADEVILLAIN II. I've spoken with Seanh a few times over the course of the past year since the release of SADEVILLAIN (2016) and last I knew, he was busy crafting some original beats for an Aesop Rock remix project, which became his recent Aesop Rock vs. Seanh EP. It appears as though Seanh quietly uploaded SADEVILLAIN's proper sequel, fittingly titled SADEVILLAIN II, Monday afternoon and seemingly wasn't picked up by an media outlets until @okayplayer Tweeted out: "Ol...

" Ghostface [Killah] 's Ironman is still my favorite album in all of music. And Raekwon is one of my favorite rappers ever, so I wanted to take a stab at his solo cut off Ironman and pay direct homage, since Raekwon has had a big influence on me as a writer of visual Crime Raps [over] the past 3-4 years," Philly emcee Zilla Rocca wrote within a recent email sent to The Witzard . Zilla 's "Faster Blade" (Redux) expertly flips RZA 's Persuaders-sampling Raekwon cut from Ghostface 's 1996 debut, Ironman . Not entirely unlike Zilla Rocca 's recent Son Raw -produced "98 Avirex Flow," "Faster Blade" was uploaded to Wrecking Crew 's Soundcloud — Zilla 's Philly -based collective formed with fellow rapper-producers Small Professor and Curly Castro . Like much of Wu-Tang Clan 's discography, "Faster Blade" takes its name from 1982-83 Hong Kong Martial Arts Action film Faster Blade, Poisonous Darts...

"Just in from the department of unexpectedness, Banks (no, not Lloyd ) has upped a mixtape and it's called EVERYBODY ON MY D*CK LIKE THEY SUPPOSED TO BE . Actually, we kinda knew this was happening. Paul [Banks] sent over a rough mixtape about nine months ago of his beats and production and it was genius. And what, with all the Kendricks and the A$APs and whatever, we thought a mixtape would take Banks to new heights if we got it out months before release... In this case, Paul called in a some mega-favors and got features from El-P , Talib [Kweli], Mike G , and hold up, HIGH PRIZM (né High Priest )," reads Matablog's tongue-in-cheek press release published accompanying Interpol frontman Paul Banks' surprisingly great 2013 "mixtape," Everybody On My D*ck Like They Supposed to Be . It would appear as though around the same general time frame, Banks miraculously managed to link up with avid chess player and Wu-Tang Clan founding member RZA ;...

" SADEVILLAIN came about when I made two remixes back to back consisting of MF DOOM and Sade ( "Air" & "Silver Spoon" ). After posting it on the /r/MFDOOM subreddit, I got some pretty good feedback, and one user suggested I should make a full mixtape involving only MF DOOM and Sade , and I thought that was a great idea, so I laced some more samples with some of my production and went to work," mysterious 18-year-old British producer Sean Harrison aka Seanh2k11 wrote within an emailed conversation just two nights ago. Harrison quietly uploaded his 8-track SADEVILLAIN EP to DatPiff Monday afternoon with the intent to generate "maybe 1,000 views max," which quickly garnered critical acclaim from okayplayer , FACT, Highsnobiety , rapper Lupe Fiasco, and a number of additional online publications; in an attempt to distance and set myself apart from my peers, I reached out to Seanh2k11 via his YouTube channel in hopes to line up a SADE...

"Hey baby, you forgot your Ray Bans And my sheets still orange from your spray tan It was more than soft porn for the K-man She remember my Sprinter, said "I was in the grape van" Uhm, well cutie, I like your bougie booty Come Erykah Badu me, well, let's make a movie... No more parties in LA Please, baby, no more parties in LA" - Kanye & Kendrick Lamar Kanye West is without a doubt one of the most charismatic, unabashedly outspoken to a fault, and arguably creative artists in all of Hip-Hop and even all of music; in my eyes, West, the self-proclaimed "No. 1 Rockstar On The Planet," could easily be likened to Classic Rock monoliths Queen , who once performed "Bohemian Rhapsody" at Glastonbury . For purposes of this very analogy I'm trying yo set up, that would in turn, make President Obama 's favorite emcee, Kendrick Lamar , David Bowie in our "Under Pressure" -referencing equation. Lamar's To Pimp a...

Now, I wouldn't exactly go ahead and bet my life on it, but I'm almost positive the first Hip-Hop album I ever bought with my own money was Will Smith's squeaky clean, parent-approved Big Willie Style (1997) and after that, I believe it was the slightly less embarrassing and arguably, far more genre-shaping Power In Numbers (2002) by recently reformed Los Angeles six-piece Jurassic 5. Hip-Hop, as you well know even if you just remotely follow this very publication, is by far one of my all-time favorite genres, along with Hardcore Punk and Indie Rock. Throughout the five or so years I've been single-handedly running The Witzard, I believe I've done a few of these Best of... or year-end lists (most recently, in 2013). While there were a handful of undoubtedly great Indie Rock, R&B, Punk, etc. albums released throughout the course of 2015, I've decided to compile a Hip-Hop-centric Top 10; with that said, here are a few cross-genre honorable mentions worth a s...

"DROPPING SOME NEW TRACKS IN THE [MORNING] JUST TO SAY, "HEY WE'RE WORKING ON NEW TUNES JUST EXPLORING AND FINDING... THANKS FOR THE LOVE AS ALWAYS," @badbadnotgood cryptically Tweeted late Thursday night; on the heels of their latest impending non-album double-header, "Here and Now" and "Timewave Zero." okayplayer's own skilled wordsmith Michael Eric Gonik fittingly described "Timewave Zero" as a "full-sprint psychedelic jazz & rock romp built over a dizzying shuffle and lurking, murky organs." Gonik then continued to describe the slightly more subdued, college slam poetry bar-leaning "Here and Now" as "[ramping] up the reverie with a sampledelic treatment that could double as a lost Sun-Ra outing with a more straightforward groove." While they've previously reinterpreted everyone from Ol' Dirty Bastard to Kanye 's favorite London -bred crooner James Blake , BBNG 's recen...

"We reached out to DOOM to see if he was interested in giving us a track, and were told that the DOOMSTARKS project was close to completion and there was a song we could have... we jumped on it! I mean, it's [Ghostface Killah] and DOOM rapping together. It's pretty much my rap nerd dreams coming true. I think they bring something out in each other that's very exciting for me as a rap listener," Adult Swim 's own glorified fan-boy Jason DeMarco recently gushed to Uproxx , concerning of course, the cartoon network's acquisition of DOOMSTARKS' unofficial return-to-form, "Lively Hood." While his official title may be Vice President/Creative Director of Adult Swim On-Air , DeMarco himself simply managed to distill his responsibilities down to "basically, if it's on Adult Swim and it's NOT a show, it's my group's responsibility to make;" this including, but not limited to promo campaigns, network ID's, anima...

"BIG UPS TO THIS NEW @DRAKE FIRE PROD. BY @FRANKDUKES [AND] @BOI1DA FT. @RIVERTIBER ON THE PART 2 VOCALS #NOTELLIN #6HITZ," @badbadnotgood frantically Tweeted upon the release of Drake 's surprise mixtape/album , IF YOUR READING THIS ITS TOO LATE , late last month. That very track, Tiber aka Tommy Paxon-Beesley 's own original composition, "No Talk" went unreleased... until yesterday afternoon when The FADER premiered it; "I've been working with Frank Dukes for a minute. He made a dope sample with my vocal stem, which Boi-1da put drums on top of, and I guess Drake liked the beat and recorded to it," BBNG -affiliated multi-instrumentalist River Tiber lamented to The FADER . "No Talk" is a glitchy Electro /percussion-aided emotive track, which in its original form, honestly, doesn't sound all that far removed from your typical Emo-Rap Drake beat. While it seems as though they might have sampled "No Talk"...

Fresh on the heels of their forthcoming collaborative Jazz-Rap album with Ghostface Killah , awesomely titled Sour Soul , Canadian -bred instrumental trio BADBADNOTGOOD (BBNG) have spearheaded an unofficial GHOSTDOOM/DOOMSTARKS "reunion;" Ghostface and infrequent rapping partner/producer, [MF] DOOM have been teasing their mythical tentatively titled "Swift & Changeable" album for about 10 years now. BBNG recruited Ghostface Killah & DOOM for their third Sour Soul pre-release track, "Ray Gun," which as a recently released statement reads, "was inspired by 1960's and [70's] music, taking inspiration from the recording techniques and production of that era." While "Ray Gun"' s companion retro-fitted Rob Schroeder (Lodger Films) -directed video doesn't appear to feature BBNG, Ghostface Killah , or DOOM , "the video instantly transports you into a bizarre retro-futuristic world as "The Mask" ...

It's pretty wild to think that 17-year-old emcee Bishop Nehru 's major label debut is entirely produced by mysterious rapper-producer MF DOOM and will likely see a release on Nas' newly-established Mass Appeal Records imprint. While he's currently touring across Europe with Nasty Nas himself, Lex Records unleashed "Darkness" (sub-titled HBU ) late Monday afternoon, the first taste of Bishop Nehru & DOOM 's long-rumored NehruvianDOOM LP. It's seemingly a dusty horn-assisted beat culled from DOOM 's expansive 10-volume Special Herbs instrumental series, which @BishopNehru recently told a Twitter follower is "the only one" harvested from the nearly 90 track collection; Nehru promptly replied, "of course he raps" when brazenly asked by another fan if " DOOM [is] gonna be spitting on the album or just producing?" Bishop Nehru self-directed "Darkness"' s companion under his birth name Markel ...

Former Community cast member and aspiring funnyman Donald Glover released the first track in over a year under his Childish Gambino moniker Tuesday afternoon, "Centipede." It's a 6-minute brooding, epic track that flawlessly shifts between a cappella ballad, hard-hitting rhymefest, and bass-heavy street jam. While I was lucky enough to catch Gambino live at Starland Ballroom with Flatbush Zombies a couple years ago on the Camp concert tour (2011-12), he hasn't really put out much material since last year's ROYALTY mixtape. An uncharacteristically feature-heavy affair, Childish Gambino managed to recruit Danny Brown , RZA, Beck , Danielle HAIM, Bun B , Nipsey Hu$$el, Ghostface Killah , Chance The Rapper , and Tina Fey for ROYALTY 's 18 tracks. But anyways... "Centipede" is without a doubt Donald Glover 's return to form as Childish Gambino ; Glover recently Facebooked , "Smaller role on Community = More time for music. Life is ...