The Witzard

Been seeing a lot of Shock G stories (so many of 'em, so good.) Many people in The Bay, mostly music industry folks, all have a story of that cat, kinda mythical, like the Prince or Bill Murray tales you sometimes hear. An indelible mark they leave on you just doing some regular sh*t, 'cuz they're simply special like that. I have a few, but this one sticks out as one of my faves, details all, of course, a bit fuzzy due to this time in my life (so much 🥦) but, also, this was roughly 20 years ago (crazy that I still remember so much of this night, but you would, too, if you experienced it...) My guy, Ryan (then, known as Earflaps, now running Discos Mas) used to have a Wednesday at The Ivy Room on San Pablo. It was, generally, a laid-back affair, but all wax and tons of fun when I joined. Ivy Room is (historically) a little hole-in-the-wall (mostly Rock) live music venue, but on occasion, they'd have Blues & Soul and some random DJ nights. One Wednesday, we wer...

Digital Underground doesn't really get the respect it deserves, I'd say. They were wildly inventive, balancing silliness with musical chops, and were, arguably, instrumental in starting the wave of George Clinton/Funkadelic-inspired sound that would dominate mid-to-late 90's Hip-Hop. Of course, they, also, introduced us to 2pac and were an integral part of one of the craziest movies of all time, Nothing But Trouble. And Shock G took the Rap alter-ego to new extremes with the Humpty Hump persona, to the point where many people didn't realize they were the same person. We could assume this was inspirational for Kool Keith & MF DOOM, among many others. A lesser-known alter-ego of Shock's was The Piano Man, who was credited with much of the group's instrumentation and production. As Rackadelic, he created their iconic cover and liner [note] artwork. These alter-egos, also, including MC Blowfish, The Computer Woman, and more, all served to obscure the fact...

Black Rob - The Black Rob Report CD (CREDIT: Jonathan Mannion) Son Raw is a freelance music writer and producer. A few decades removed from their peak, there are two things we can say for certain about Sean Combs and Bad Boy Records. First, they dropped some of the greatest, commercially-minded Hip-Hop and R&B records of the turn of The Millennium. Rap purists will exalt Biggie's two classics alone, but [Ma$e's] Harlem World is the one Jiggy album you need, Faith [Evans] & 112 birthed a generation of Hip-Hop/Soul (and soundtracked the conception of another) and after their late 90's peak, Diddy doggedly kept searching for his next great emcee, never finding him, but releasing great records in the process. Second, Bad Boy is a deeply cursed label and Sean Combs has a terrible track record of caring for his artists. Biggie was murdered in cold blood during a completely avoidable trip to Los Angeles after an over-hyped label feud. Ma$e was run out [of] the busi...

Digital Underground Word Up! Magazine Fold-out Poster (SOURCE: WEIRD RAP) In a year of seemingly unending Hip-Hop artist deaths, [Thursday] night was a particularly rough blow to Gen X Rap old heads with the passing of Shock G AKA Humpty Hump AKA Gregory Edward Jacobs. While reviewing Twitter [Thursday] night, it became immediately clear that too many folks born post-1990 didn't really know who he was, beyond his one massive hit. This following list is intended to educate, entertain and elucidate. No list of Shock G tracks would be complete without Digital Underground (D.U.)'s explosive two singles from their debut album, Sex Packets. Yes, these, obviously, are party tracks intended to get a$$es shaking, but listen to the lyrics and you'll quickly find surprising depth. The message is deceptively simple—don't let others dictate who you are or how you should feel. Fat, skinny, fake-nosed—all were welcome at a D.U. party. Without Shock G, the world may w...