The Witzard

Last Friday was quite the busy day for critically-acclaimed drummer/producer Travis Barker : his remix for rising Pop songstress Maggie Lindemann 's "Friends Go" was released, as well as "F9mily (You and Me)" from Country/Rap emcee Lil Nas X 's latest 7 EP, AND his main gig, Blink-182 released a new song, "Generational Divide." As many of you may know by now, long-time co-vocalist and guitarist, Tom DeLonge , was fired/quit Blink back in 2015. Prior to this, the band had been active with Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge & Travis Barker from 1998-2005, then, the band broke up for about four years, and reunited in 2009 for numerous world-wide tours. FULL DISCLOSURE: Blink-182 was amongst my first favorite Punk/Hardcore bands, so I'm a bit biased! I've always stated, I was happy when Blink returned—although, Mark & Travis' Electro-Rock/Pop-Punk band (+44) formed in the interim, put out one of my all-time favorite albums!—although...

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. ...

"Yoooooo! Back in 2011, @monkmiyagi [Hodgy] and I connected and put out some music. When we dropped "Nagoya," it really helped me out a lot. Since then, our friendship has grown and we have a lot more music together; "BARBELL" is the first song to come from that. It is also the first single from Hodgy 's debut solo album, Fireplace: TheNotTheOtherSide . Hodgy , I'm grateful for your friendship and I hope you like it because there's a lot more music coming from both of us JD X ," @jontidanimals wrote on Instagram over the weekend on the heels of Hodgy 's first single from his forthcoming December 2nd full-length debut. "Recording "BARBELL" back in May—often, I sit around with my acoustic [guitar] and record harmonies, as a kind of meditation process. I find it soothing; this was one of those, which I then turned into a beat, which @monkmiyagi turned into a track," Jonti continued late Friday night. Fireplace: The...

"The "Wolves" song came from a conversation that me and Drake had, where we was going to do an album together and the album was called Wolves ... me and Jay [started] talking about Watch The Throne , then Drake went and did all the records with [Lil'] Wayne and did the tour," Kanye unexpectedly revealed to The Breakfast Club radio host and one-time Catfish co-detective Charlamagne The God last February on the heels of his spirited SNL 40 medley. Lest we forget that Kanye once produced Drake 's 808's & Heartbreak -reminiscent "Find Your Love;" making Kanye 's recent " Yeezy , Yeezy, Yeezy, just jumped over Jumpman " What a Time to Be Alive interpolation and apparent Drake diss all the more perplexing. Not entirely unlike Paul McCartney -assisted "Only One" released over New Year's Eve 2014-15 , "FACTS" was quietly uploaded to Soundcloud mere hours ahead of this year's annual New Yea...

Tyler, The Creator has taken a page from his Odd Future cohort and one-time "little brother" Earl Sweatshirt 's playbook by announcing that he'll surprise release a new album, Cherry Bomb just a mere three days ahead of it's planned Monday April 13th digital release; within a matter of hours, he managed to strategically unleash two previously unreleased album tracks lifted from Cherry Bomb , "F***king Young/Perfect" and "Deathcamp." "THANK YOU CHARLIE WILSON, CHAZ BUNDICK [Toro Y Moi] , AND COLE [ALEXANDER] FROM THE BLACK LIPS FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO ["F***KING YOUNG/DEATHCAMP"] " @fucktyler frantically Tweeted soon after the pair of tracks were initially uploaded to his newly-launched app. GOLFMEDIA . Although, according to a trail of information accidentally "leaked" along with the album's iTunes pre-order, it appears as though Wilson's G.O.O.D. Music label boss, Mr. Kanye West will supposed...

"A great US Hip-Hop singer pays tribute to Daniel Dumile , better known as MF DOOM , an other[worldly] Hip-Hop artist, from the New York City underground scene. But who's behind the mask?" French Télévision network Culturebox wrote along with a series of seven cryptic YouTube videos quietly uploaded between December-February of last year. The mysterious masked wordsmith is eventually revealed to be Yasiin Bey aka Mos Def , who's likely the only person on planet Earth who can honestly say he's worked alongside Mark Wahlberg , Donald Sutherland, Jack Black , and MF DOOM. Culturebox 's BEYONDOOM EP-length playlist isn't exactly the first time Mos Def has expressed his fanboy-like admiration for DOOM ; a few years ago, he went as far as to "bet a million dollars on DOOM against Lil' Wayne " in a battle rap scenario, supposedly masqueraded as the Metal-Faced Villain after he cancelled a series of appearances initially billed as joint ...

"I've always felt like "Life Round Here" wasn't [ever] really finished," lamented English singer-songwriter James Blake during a recent Noisey video-interview with new-found collaborator. Chance The Rapper . Arguably a First Wave Dubstep pioneer, Blake's music almost seems pre-fit for a sharp-tongued young emcee like Chance ; But it doesn't come off in that preconceived, label-suggested, and slapped together kinda way like other recent "crossover" hits (ie: A$AP Rocky & Skrillex ). It's pretty easy to tell that these guys are true admirers of each other's work, who have become fast friends. Fresh off a collaborative track with Lil' Wayne , Chance The Rapper recently revealed to online-magazine XXL that he and Blake met at this past year's SXSW and "kept in touch and started working together on a couple of tracks, including some original material... people seem to like ["Life Round Here"] a lot....

It's pretty safe to say that Chance The Rapper is quite easily the best thing to come out of Chicago since Kanye was a virtually unknown producer, making Soulful beats for Blueprin t-era Jay-Z . His latest mixtape, Acid Rap is 13 tracks-worth of sheer drug-fueled Psych-Rap weirdness; at just 19, Chance has already worked with now defunct Kids These Days , Hannibal Buress, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League , Nosaj Thing, Action Bronson , Twista, Jake-One , Childish Gambino, Ab-Soul , Blended Babies, etc. After the nearly insta-success of Acid Rap , Lil' Wayne 's people recently came a'calling for Chance The Rapper and co-producers Nate Fox, Peter Cottontale & Cam to conjure up a collaborative track. Nate Fox recounted the almost unbelievable scenario to Complex just the other day: " Chance texted me saying, "Come to the studio at 11." I get there at 11, and it's me and Peter, Cam, Chance , and Pat , and everybody's there. And he pulls us ...

Internet -spun legend had to that Chief Keef discovered Polish beat-maker Young Ravisu (Radoslaw Sobieraj) himself in later 2012-13 while perusing YouTube for " Finally Rich -type beats;" after some additional mixing, paperwork, and legal mumbo-jumbo, Young Ravisu 's instrumental slowly morphed into "Citgo." The 2 like-minded 18-year-olds' collaboration eventually ended up appearing as a bonus track on Chief Keef 's commercial debut, Finally Rich . Before this piece goes too far, let me just say that I'm far from a Chief Keef expert/super-fan: I'm really only familiar with him through his Kanye -affiliated tracks, "I Don't Like" (Remix) and more recently, "Hold My Liquor" with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) . Now, nearly 8+ months after it's initial release, "Citgo" has been re-hashed as a proper video-single, more or less. A mere coincidence or not, GBE Ent. also unleashed a 16-track mixtape, Bang P...

It seems like Miley Cyrus has somehow become some sort of weird Ellen DeGeneres or Justin Bieber -like punchline-inducing phenomenon for 4 out of 5 of your favourite rappers; Recently referenced by everyone from Jay Z to Rick Ross , who eloquently rapped, "I got a bad bitch in my Chevy / Selling Miley Cyrus in my brand new Monte Carlo ..." on Meek Mill 's recent Dreams & Nightmares track, "Believe It." All of this likely originated from Cyrus' own generally off-the-wall BONKERS Hip-Hop -infused "We Can't Stop" video-single. G.O.O.D. Music emcee Big Sean kinda took it to a whole 'nother level Friday upon unleashing his latest Hall of Fame single, "Fire." Leading up to the album's August 27th release date, Sean has leaked 3 additional teaser singles: "Guap," "Switch Up" [-feat. Common ], and "Beware" with Lil' Wayne & Jhené Aiko . DONDA director Matthew Williams mor...

Anyone remember a period in time... oh, maybe 10-12 years ago when guys like Lil' Wayne & Fred Durst were still socially relevant and putting out 1/2 decent music? The most interesting thing that Lil' Wayne 's done in recent memory was going into a spurt of codeine-induced seizures (allegedly) and Limp Bizkit signed to his label, Cash Money around this time last year, supposedly broke up , and re-formed since. Needless to say, a Limp Bizkit/Wayne collabo would've likely sounded pretty AWESOME, had it been released between Chocolate Starfish & The Hot Dog Flavored Water and Tha Carter III (2000-08). But as rough as I've made this track sound so far, if Lil' Wayne 's still going for that whole slightly dated sleaze-soaked Rap-Rock vibe, Limp Bizkit 's probably your go-to band of knuckleheads. "Ready to Go" has been in-the-works for the larger part of a year, since initially inking a deal with Cash Money , and was finally unlea...

For argument's sake, I guess I've always been an Usher fan... or @ least an admirer of Mr. Raymond's sheer talent and work ethic. I can vaguely remember nervously asking a few P.Y.T.'s to dance to "U Got It Bad" (2001) @ those painfully cheese-tastic 7-8th grade dances. Paraphrasing Pitchfork staff writer Ryan Dombal , it was an oddly-matched collaboration that no one expected, let alone asked for. But somehow still managed to greatly surpass everyone's non-existent expectations: Friday night @ FADER Fort (SXSW) , Usher wandered on-stage with The Afghan Whigs mid-way through their "Climax" cover. Frontman Greg Dulli & Usher then launched into spirited, guitar-driver renditions of both artists' more well-known tracks, "Somethin' Hot" and scorching set-closer, "OMG." Former- Yeasayer member and solo artist Sinkane (Ahmed Gallab) came on stage to perform a super- Funky version of his own single, ...

The New Danger (2004), Mos Def 's STELLAR Hip-Hop/Blues Rock album recorded with Funky cats from Bad Brains, Living Colour , and a few other pioneering African-American Rock bands... has to be one of my favourite albums of ALL TIME! Dante Smith has always been a stylish, righteous, socially conscious rapper, ever since forming Black Star with like-minded friend-musician, Talib Kweli in the mid-90's. Mos Def recently pulled a "Cat Stevens," whole-heartedly converting to Islam , and changed his name to Yasiin Bey . "I Don't Like" is the third release that's been slow leaked from Top 40 Underdog , Bey's upcoming G.O.O.D. Music flip of Modern Radio staples. But don't get it twisted, this surely isn't Mos Def 's first rodeo; He managed to effortlessly re-work both Jay-Z/Kanye 's "The Takeover" and Grandmaster Flash 's "The Message" (1982) on The New Danger . Chief Keef, Lil' Wayne , and T...

Bob Dylan 's been on "The Never-Ending Tour" for about 40+ years straight now... rapidly releasing a new album every couple years and continually re-inventing himself as the "new Bob Dylan" for a fresh generation of youngsters. Sept. 11th saw the release of Dylan's landmark 35th album - Tempest , which is pretty impressive since he's 71 now! I always say that Bob Dylan 's music is a whole lot like Lil' Wayne 's prolific output; You either love it or hate it. A couple of my favourite albums from his damn-near expansive backcatalog are easily Blood On The Tracks , Nashville Skyline , and Blonde On Blonde . It was an utterly AMAZING experience, when I saw Bob Dylan live @ Temple with my dad and buddy Jeremy a few years back on the Christmas In The Heart album tour (2009). Aside from a bunch of random grizzly-voiced old/new tracks spanning the bulk of Dylan's discography, I really only recognized about 4-5 staple tracks puled from Highwa...

Talib Kweli 's latest mixtape, Attack The Block is a loose [street] album that's loosely based around a British Sci-Fi Thriller of the same name (2011). Kweli does his best to bridge that gap, effectively re-appropriating film dialog for his intro track, "Attack The Block!!!" Talib Kweli has always been a fairly active, politically- conscious rapper ever since he first burst onto the scene with Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star (1998). Surprisingly, Attack The Block was actually released a few weeks earlier than expected... on Sept. 3rd, Labor Day Weekend instead of Sept. 18th. Co-presented along with DJ Z-Trip , the mixtape really is a generous offering - 18 tracks deep, 6 solo Kweli raps. It looks like Talib Kweli has managed to rope in some serious favors and scored guest verses from Black Thought , Skyzoo, Das Racist , Lil' Wayne, Killer Mike , Posdnuos (De La Soul), Ryan Leslie , Mac Miller, and Ab-Soul ... In addition to production work fro...

Mos Def is not merely a rapper, he's a fucking lyrical assassin! Born Dante Smith (1973) and formerly known as "Pretty Flaco," the man now replies to Yasiin Bey . Take it as a mid-career re-invention, of sorts for the seasoned rapper who's worked with everyone from The Black Keys - Gorillaz . In late 2010, Mos Def signed a record deal with Kanye West 's very own G.O.O.D. Music , but an album for his new label has yet to fully materialize. Yasiin Bey is currently working on a number of assorted projects: 5th solo album ( G.O.O.D. debut), Black Star Aretha with Talib Kweli , and Kanye 's label comp. - "Cruel Summer." My personal favourite Mos Def album is The New Danger , which was released in 2004... right around the time that I was first getting into Hip-Hop and forming my own unique "musical ear." It's essentially a Blues -inspired Hip-Hop album that was recorded with African American Punk musicians, Black Jack Johnson . In...

Prince supposedly has 500+ written, recorded, fully completed albums and films just sitting locked up inside a giant dusty vault somewhere. Only a certain breed of artist can be that prolific/guarded, while remaining successful all @ once; Lil' Wayne and Bob Dylan also come to mind when taking about insanely fruitful singer-songwriters. But this here post is actually about none of the above... they may be discussed @ a later date. It's simply meant to set up the groundwork for tonight's "Main Attraction(s):" Lil B and local legend, Mr. Moot ! A former member of The Pack , Lil B is still rockin' those same scruffy-looking brown [white?] "Vans" until he banks $1 million. BASEDGOD is essentially so prolific that he releases a new stream-of-conciousness mixtape nearly every week. It's increasingly hard to keep track of his rapidly unveiled output, but Lil B 's full-length album, I'm Gay (2011) was truly LEGENDARY! The track presented ...

Love him or hate him, we must all admit that Lil Wayne is indeed an ever-lasting Pop Culture icon figure. Quite the prolific musician, I personally his collective output to that of Bob Dylan : You either "get it" or don't, no one's really in the middle. Aside from it's preceding lead-up mixtapes, Tha Carter III is generally regarded as one of Lil Wayne 's strongest albums. The Very Best simply list their Facebook Influences as "Lil Wayne and Phil Collins." Interesting!? Malawi -born singer, Esau Mwamwaya and Johan Hugo (Radioclit DJ) are gearing up up release their sophomore album this Summer, MTMTMK ; The Very Best 's long-awaited follow-up to Warm Heart of Africa has been in-the-works for the past 2 years... slowly recorded across Sweden, New York , and Malawi has now finally come to fruition! "Yoshua Alikuti" was filmed by Village Beat throughout Kenya 's capital city, Nairobi . It basically showcases Esau & Jo...

Having re-listened to it over the past few months, I must admit, Tom Breihan was right... Take Care is hands down, Drake 's strongest [full-length] effort since So Far Gone (2009). My personal favourite track and quite arguably the album's shining moment, "Take Care" has a deeply-rooted history. Originally penned by Blues singer-songwriter Bobby "Blue" Bland way back in 1966, Gil Scott-Heron re-appropriated "I'll Take Care of You" on his thirteenth record (2010). I'm New Here was liberated through XL Recordings , produced by labelhead Richard Russell , and features a wide array of newly-adopted musical stylings. Roughly a year later, Jamie xx was commissioned to produce a Dubstep -inspired remix album, We're New Here . Drake 's Boom-Bap version of "Take Care" is essentially a refurbished edit that beefs up the Tribal drums and subs in Rihanna for Gil Scott-Heron on the hook. Nearly 6 months after it's or...

Freestyling over a Nasteski Productions beat pulled from YouTube with just 54 views, Doffa & Hippie Paw properly lace up [and double knot] "School Yard." It's companion music video was self-directed by Awkward Silence around Millville with a hand-me-down SLR camera, borrowed tri-pod, and pink flickering HD effects. Concept-wise, "School Yard" 's loose plot revolves around a murderous Teddy Bear and a porcelain bride-to-be victim. Hippie Paw describes the overall experience as " BASED as fuck!" and adds that, "We POWER cooked in the woods, smoked trees & smokes hoes... basically, all I remember was Dr. Zaius [dog] sitting on my lap and then I got a boner." Zombie Gang are currently working on a wide variety of projects: Wreck Room's debut, Doffa 's solo freestyles, an OF Tape 2 -like group album, and an assortment of VERY RARE tracks from "the vaults." Scoop up Awkward Silence 's premier mixtape...