The Witzard

Just this past Saturday night, Raymond "Ray" Strife & iLL-Omega premiered their latest collaboration/music video for "Heaven Is Empty" at Trenton, New Jersey venue, Millhill Basement. It appears as though "Heaven Is Empty" was premiered at Millhill around 8:00pm and world-wide on YouTube just a matter of hours later at 11:00pm; Saturday night's festivities, also, included live performances from Ray Strife & iLL-Omega themselves, along with King Spade, Gibby Stites, Wormtooth, and Dre Skuffs. Ray Strife & iLL-Omega are the "Rap & production equivalent of Fonzie & Richie Cunningham," as well as the self-proclaimed "Rap Iron Fist & Luke Cage." "Heaven Is Empty" is the first single to be released from Ray Strife & iLL-Omega 's upcoming fifth collaborative project, God's Plan, expected to drop on vinyl later this Fall. Their previous collaborative efforts include Preface: I Will Neve...

Last year, Trenton, New Jersey -based emcee/producer duo Raymond "Ray" Strife & iLL-Omega unleashed their second proper long-form collaboration, Go for The Gusto . It's the full-length follow-up to Ray Strife & iLL-Omega 's 2017 Preface: I Will Never Be Beautiful EP , which was, actually, premiered right here, across the pages of The Witzard . On Super Bowl Sunday , I received an email from Ray Strife entitled "Wanna premier a new video?" It was during, as we all well know, a fairly lackluster game between The Patriots & The Rams , so I quickly watched the video and sent an exuberant "Hell yes!" Reply back to Ray . Said music video is for Go for The Gusto stand-out "Shane Falco" —an allusion to Keanu Reeves ' character in 2000 Sports/Comedy film, The Replacements —is now, proudly premiering right here on The Witzard , as well, this afternoon. Throughout "Shane Falco"' s nearly 5-minute duration, we'r...

Trenton, New Jersey -based emcee/frontman Raymond "Ray" Strife released so many projects last year, we couldn't even keep up—well, my wedding was this past October, as well!—but seriously, Ray put out a BUNCH of music throughout 2018. He released his Ill-Omega -produced full-length follow-up to 2017's critically-acclaimed Preface: I Will Never Be Beautiful EP , Go for The Gusto , #BFF EP with his real-life BFF's Roebus One & Ill-Omega originally recorded back in 2013, and HARD FEELINGS EP from his "Negative" Hardcore band, OVER EVERYTHING . Now, at the top of 2019, Ray Strife has already returned from a holiday vacation to France with a previously unreleased track entitled "Think of how a Castrated Horse Feels," which takes its name from a lyric within Nirvana 's "I Hate Myself & Want to Die" from 1993's The Beavis & Butt-Head Experience compilation. It appears as though Doc Heller 's "Think o...

Hard Feelings by Over Everything "There isn't much to say. Nothing is OK. We're over it. We are OVER EVERYTHING," is the oft-used mantra of Trenton -based OVER EVERYTHING . A self-described "Negative Hardcore" band, OVER EVERYTHING 's line-up consists of frontman Raymond "Ray Strife" Novak , guitarist Erik Monsees , bassist Ricky Scheinder , and drummer Brendan Lipira . OVER EVERYTHING 's debut EP, HARD FEELINGS , is Ray Strife 's first released piece of work since his April 2018 full-length with producer and frequent collaborator, iLL-Omega , Go for The Gusto . Ray Strife defines "Negative Hardcore" as "a place to get out all the negative sh*t in your life and brain; take the anger and aim it through the speakers! That's what I use it for, anyway" and adds that OVER EVERYTHING may (or may not) have, actually, created the genre. I've personally, been hearing rumblings about OVER EVERYTHING for a year o...