The Witzard

For the past few months, Damon Albarn & Jamie Hewlett's long-running "cartoon" band, Gorillaz, singer 2-D, bassist Murdoc Niccals, guitarist Noodle, and drummer Russel Hobbs, have been trickling out new songs sporadically during Quarantine. As part of their ongoing Song Machine series, Gorillaz have released numerous "Episodes" (songs) and "Machine Bitez" including "Momentary Bliss" Feat. slowthai & Slaves, "Désolé" Feat. Fatoumata Diawara, "Aries" Feat. Peter Hook (Joy Division/New Order) & Georgia, and "Friday 13th" Feat. Octavian. Plus, Gorillaz shared another non-Song Machine song by way of "How Far?" Feat. Tony Allen & Skepta in tribute/homage to Damon Albarn's long-time friend and collaborator, Allen, who, unfortunately, passed away back in April at the age of 79. "Song Machine—the cartoon music contraption, which spits out brand new episodes fresh from the studio, as and...

Now that his long-delayed Fool's Gold debut, OLD , finally has a proper release date (Sept. 30th), Danny Brown has unleashed it's Dirt McGirt -referencing lead video-single, "ODB." The self-proclaimed "dirty old man with a pill in his mouth and his dick in his hand" skillfully recruited frequent collaborator Paul White and [director] RUFFMERCY for "ODB," as well as A$AP Rocky , Purity Ring, Charli XCX , Freddie Gibbs, ScHoolboy Q , Rustie, A-Trak , and SKYWLKR, who also contributed to OLD 's currently unspecified tracklist. Let's just fuggedabout Kendrick Lamar 's recent #rapgame-rattling verse on Big Sean left-over "Control," Danny Brown easily out-raps and most likely terribly embarrasses nearly 3/4's of Hip-Hop 's so-called "top emcees," usually over jittery almost un-rappable Electro-Trap beats. Danny Brown and his genre-blending buddies Action Bronson & Trash Talk are soon headed out o...

Every year around this time, XXL Magazine releases a slightly jaded, misguided XXL Freshmen list. It's kinda dumb because it usually features seasoned guys like Action Bronson (29) right alongside "young bucks" like Joey Bada$$ (18) and the term Freshmen generally connotes fresh meat. XXL 2013's Freshmen Class: The Mixtape includes 17 previously released/rare tracks from Bronson, Ab-Soul, ScHoolboy Q , Joey Bada$$, Trinidad Jame$ , angel haze , Logic, Dizzy Wright, Kirko Bangs , and Travi$ Scott. It's a damn good thing the DJ Drama -hosted mixtape's up for free download online; aside from Action Bronson 's "November Rain" (Party Supplies), a Joey Bada$$/Bronsolino team-up, ScHoolboy Q 's recent single "Yay Yay," angel haze freestyling over Purity Ring , and Ab-Soul/Harry Fraud 's "Back Then," its' pretty fucking terrible! A former top chef, Action Bronson is hands down one of the most skilled emcee...

While he's arguably years past his heyday, Marshall "Eminem" Mathers really set the stage for white-bred rappers and seems to have inspired a whole new generation's-worth of angry young white men: Atmosphere , Macklemore, RiFF RAFF , Asher Roth , Mac Miller, Action Bronson , etc. Mac Miller just never really seemed interesting enough for me to wanna check out. But it looks like he's starting to align himself with a slew of genuinely skilled rappers/producers that includes Earl Sweatshirt , Ab-Soul, Freddie Gibbs , Hodgy Beats, ScHoolboy Q , Thundercat, Pharrell , and executive producer Diplo. Mac Miller 's become a lot more interesting since he started releasing material under his assorted Larry Fisherman , Larry Dollaz, and Larry Lovestein & The Velvet Revival aliases, too. We're talkin' about beautiful Bright Eyes and Elliott Smith covers, hard-hitting Hip-Hop beats, a 5-track Jazz EP, and an instrumental mixtape called Run-on Sentences (...

It seems as though Danny Brown & A$AP Rocky 's new-found friendship is based around a shared love for middle-aged women with "big tits and curvey asses" ... kinda like Kathy Griffin , for example; The 2 young emcees seem to have met while taking part in Noisey/VICE 's 5-part Back-and-Forth interview series. It was here that they first lamented about Miss Griffin 's dangerously delicious curves: "Who dat - The lady from Family Guy !? Kathy Griffin got a fatty, n*gga! The silly, goofy bitch" Once she heard they were both DTF, Kathy Griffin was surprisingly flattered and had A$AP Rocky, Danny Brown , and Russell Brand appear on her Bravo TV show, "Kathy" (Valentine's Day) . But anyways, while they have yet to trade bars on a LEGIT label-sanctioned track, looks like that'll all soon change with Old (Brown's rumored August album). Danny Brown leaked a partially unfinished version of "Kush Coma" late Tuesday a...

Action Bronson is kinda like the weirdly AWESOME love-child of Beastie Boys, Ghostface Killah , and Rick Ross . The Albanian-American rapper hails from Flushing, Queens and cut his teeth as a Top Chef before converting over to rhymin' roughly 2 years ago. In a true testament to his sheer prolific brilliance, Bronson has linked up with one sole producer @ a time for each project: Dr. Lecter/Tommy Mas , Well-Done/Statik Selektah, and Blue Chips/Party Supplies - Plus Mr. Wonderful, Saab Stories , "Blue Chips 2," and his VICE Records debut are ALL expected to materialize fairly soon, too. Action Bronson has already had a chance to work with everyone from Asher Roth to Wu-Tang Clan and was the undoubted MVP of Meyhem Lauren 's hotel suite-recorded mixtape, Respect The Fly Shit . Bronson inked a deal with Warner Bros. back in mid-August and it seems like he has their full support to "spread his wings" a little bit on Rare Chandeliers , which was releas...

After 2 cancelled re-schedulings, I finally managed to see Childish Gambino live up in Sayreville, NJ with my buddy Ryan just about a month ago. Complete with lots of lights, "pyro," guitars, and violins, it seemed more like a KISS concert than a Hip-Hop show... definitely much more showmanship than I could have ever imagined! Donald Glover acts weekly on Community (NBC) and in his downtime, has begun to flesh out a pretty solid career moonlighting as an Indie rapper. Childish Gambino 's recent wide-spread release, Camp really helped solidify his unique brand of raps about [college] girls strewn across Dance -laden beats. Gambino previously self-released a slew of mixtapes and online albums between 2008-10, but Camp was still semi-misleadingly totted as his "debut album." Generally not one to enlist fellow emcees, Donald Glover seems to be changing his ways, as he's secretly complied a forthcoming feature-driven mixtape. 3 of 6 recently "lea...