The Witzard

Mega Ran with Kevin Snith at the Clerks III premiere (SOURCE: Raheem Jarbo) We've been steadily covering, listening to, and enjoying Mega Ran's music since first hearing Forever Famicom with K-Murdock back in 2010. As his overall sound, style, and delivery has gradually evolved over the course of the past 12 years, Mega Ran (also known as Random & RandomBeats) has always remained unabashedly nerdy fully embracing the Nerdcore/Chiptune Rap genre tag(s). Mega Ran has recorded and released centered or loosely themed around his love and admiration for Star Wars, Final Fantasy, Mega Man, Sonic The Hedgehog, professional wrestling, Dragon Ball Z, Stranger Things, BTS, The Mandalorian, The Dewey Decibel System, Macross/Robotech, Metal Gear Solid, Encanto, and much, much more. Ran's latest effort and 11th solo full-length, Live '95 , has been described as an intersection between "Hip-Hop, basketball, and the inner-city cultures that have allowed each to thrive."...

As we all well know by now (or SPOILER ALERT:) Stranger Things is a Science-Fiction/Horror web television series created, written, and directed by The Duffer Brothers and executive-produced by Shawn Levy. The show was released as a Netflix original series premiering on July 15, 2016. The show takes place in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana in the early-to-mid-1980's. When a young boy vanishes, Hawkins becomes embroiled in an extraordinary mystery involving secret experiments, terrifying super-natural forces, and one strange little girl... Mega Ran released STRANGERS in 2017 and a follow-up is upon us! Inspired by the events of the record-breaking fourth season of Stranger Things (seriosuly, no SPOILERS here,) RandomBeats & Soul Mates Present: Mega Ran & Amerigo Gazaway's STRANGERS: Back to The Lab, a follow-up to Ran's 2017 STRANGERS EP. STRANGERS: Back To The Lab by Mega Ran & Amerigo Gazaway Featuring production work from DJ DN³, Lost Perception,...

Sometimes, you need to look to the past as much as the future. The Overview Effect by emcee-producer duo Jermiside & The Expert is a vast musical collage of Psychedelic soundscapes merged together with Hip-Hop's golden age. A socially conscious Psychedelic Hip-Hop album equally inspired by Marvin Gaye's narrative on What's Going On (1971) mixed with tripped out beats reminiscent of Edan's Beauty & The Beat (2005.) The production on The Overview Effect takes on late 60's Psychedelic Folk/Rock, viewed through a 90's B-boy mentality of heavy drums and dope breaks. Built with a keen ear for detail, Dublin-based beatsmith The Expert densely layered his productions with tons of samples, seamlessly weaved together; swirling strings, sitars, Moog synthesizers, and crunchy guitars are all inter-woven and present together here, accompanied and embellished by trippy sound effects. "In terms of song-writing, very few songs on this record have a "classi...

A Winter-ready MC Lars (CREDIT: Nicole Mago) We've Got A Flyer On You will (hopefully!) be a new recurring column here at The Witzard. It's set to feature, examine, and re-visit mixed bill/genre, once-in-a-lifetime, iconic, and otherwise noteworthy Punk/Hardcore show flyers and their corresponding line-ups. As often as possible, we plan to speak directly with the promoters, bookers, flyer artists, soundmen/women, show attendees, and, most importantly, the artists themselves. If all goes well, we're even hoping to, eventually, cover a handful of shows we attended ourselves in years past, as well. For this slightly re-vamped edition of We've Got A Flyer On You, we'll be spotlighting a noteworthy musician, rather than a singular infamous show, for each installment. For over 20 years, MC Lars has built a fanbase across The US, The UK and the rest of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. In addition to touring, he has performed at Carnegie Hall, at South By S...

Haj of dumhi tells us he's been working on Shanti's Rebuttal on-and-off for about two years. We briefly spoke with Haj about Shanti's Rebuttal during our 2020 wrap-up style interview earlier this year. The majority of his beats were completed pre-COVID, but when COVID-19 hit, Haj started working on his 2020 projects with FERMENTED SPIRITS and Charles Only/ShamelessPlug. Some of the beats from Shanti's (and some from 2019's TERiYAKi HAiR.PIECE ) wound up being a part of the 2020 project The Airing of Grievances with Reef The Lost Cauze. Initially, Haj intended to put Shanti's Rebuttal out as an instrumental companion piece to Grievances shortly thereafter, but, then, he started working on video collages and more artwork, etc. the music, also, evolved a little bit. It's about 18 minutes long and is intended to be experienced as one continuous piece of music; an Instrumental Hip-Hop soundtrack, of sorts. Its basic plot involves an unwitting heroine who wind...

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. "I tell anyone who ever asks that there would be no Mega Ran without the fearlessness of two of my favorite artists: DOOM & Del The Funky Homosapien. I even mention it in my book, [DREAM MASTER: A MEMOIR]. I got to work with Del this past year and I never let go of hope that I'd one day collaborate with DOOM. Unfortunately, his transition pr...

Rob Kovacs (CREDIT: J. Bartholomew) We first came into contact with Rob Kovacs very recently, as he was one of the primary driving forces behind Mega Ran & K-Murdock (Bits & Rhymes') Forever Famicom: Diamond Edition . Essentially, a re-mixed, re-mastered, re-released 10th anniversary edition of Bits & Rhymes' 2010 collaborative debut, Forever Famicom. For this Diamond Edition re-issue, EVERY in-game sample was meticulously and pain-stakingly re-played by the talented pianist Rob "88bit" Kovacs. Yes, Kovacs moonlights as 88bit, a project wherein he frequently re-plays and re-interprets popular Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in-game soundtracks note-for-note across his ivory keys. Rob Kovacs is a multi-talented recording artist, professional pianist, award-winning composer, and singer-songwriter. He toured and released one record with the piano-based trio, Return of Simple, and started the Indie Rock band, Math + Logic , before embarking on a solo ca...

Rob "88bit" Kovacs, Mega Ran, DJ Indica Jones & K-Murdock (CREDIT: Jeff Moses) It's great when things come full-circle, especially, when they happen naturally, organically entirely on their own. So, our site has been around since 2010 and both Kyle "K-Murdock" Murdock and Raheem "Mega Ran" Jarbo were both amongst our first interviews back in our earliest aughts. We believe, we met K-Murdock through our friend and then-record store owner Jamie at Blinding Sun Records in Frederick, Maryland and we must have been introduced to Mega Ran through Kyle. While we can vividly recall helping crowd-fund their 2010 album, Forever Famicom, together as Bits & Rhymes, we're not entiely sure, if we ever covered said album here across the pages of The Witzard. Either way, it's easily one of our absolute favorite albums released during the 2010's and still amasses frequent listens to this day. We've since covered a handful of Mega Ran's sol...

Tribute to George Floyd for @mic By: Dewey Bryan Saunders (@deweysaunders) This is a very rare occasion, but I'm at a loss for words... but, in all seriousness, these are very strange, upsetting, and uncertain times. Not only re we all grappling with separation anxiety, cabin fever, Fear of Missing Out (FOMO,) and extreme uncertainty amidst this global COVID-19/Coronavirus Pandemic, but, as you may have seen on the news, we're dealing with a whole other crisis now, as well: racial injustice. We're in no position to speak on behalf of The Black & Brown Communities, but anyone who was raised with any sense of morals, values, etc. knows whats going on right now across The United States, and, I'm assuming across the whole world everyday, is completely unjust and wrong. No one deserves to die based solely on their race, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ideals and values, etc. and we, as an entity, stand in solidarity with The Black & Brown Communities. Today...

dubldragon. is a Bay Area, California-based Hip-Hop group consisting of emcee Chad "Skeptik" Porras and producer Dan "Danny G." Gensel . They have affiliations with The Lobetrotters Collective , Full Moon Freakz, and Deep Thinka Records and are currently signed to BRZOWSKI 's imprint, Milled Pavement Records . dubldragon. 's latest album, Macroforms , was released in November 2019 on Milled Pavement . Macroforms has been described as "an examination of man's place (or lack thereof) in the universe. In a digital space, what meaning does physicality have? When man has depleted The Earth entirely, will we have anywhere to ruin next in its place? Where do the divisions lie between, wants, needs, and desires? As unanswerable as it may be, it sure is fun to think about, isn't it?" Skeptik & Danny G. have already released two music videos for "Case" and "The Aleph" from the album. Supposedly, there are, at least, TW...