The Witzard

Roughneck Jihad (or Jihad, The Roughneck MC) is a Los Angeles-based underground artist and veteran emcee and Awkward is a beat-maker, producer, emcee, and artist hailing from Bristol, UK. Definitely two unlikely collaborators separated by an ocean. Jihad & Awkward first met when Awkward contributed a handful of beats to Jihad's group, Third Sight's then-new album IV (2016.) Awkward & Roughneck Jihad have worked together a number of times since, but always in a fairly limited capacity, including Awkward mastering Jihad's 2018 project, Red Herring Mixtape, and producing the title/opening track for Jihad's 2020 effort, The Red Sentence. All the while, however, it appears as though MC Roughneck Jihad & DJ Awkward have secretly been working on a proper full-length project of their own. It all started to come to light when The MC & DJ released a neck-snapping digital single consisting of two infectious tracks, "RAWK" and "DROMEDARY" bac...

Late last night, I noticed a Tweet from Roughneck Jihad (@roughneckjihad) which read, "Check our this continent-spanning Hip-Hop collaboration with the beat and cuts by @AwkwardUK and the rhyme by yours truly, Roughy Rough ." It included a mysterious YouTube link labelled "MC Roughneck Jihad and DJ Awkward "Dromedary."' Bay Area emcee Roughneck Jihad and Bristol, UK-based producer Awkward have, in fact, collaborated before, but, seemingly, not to this degree. Awkward mastered Jihad 's 2018 Red Herring Mixtape and years prior, produced "Amen" & "Barbarian" from Third Sight 's 2016 album, IV . Within a 2018 All-around Breakdown for his Red Herring Mixtape , Roughneck Jihad told The Witzard, "in addition, [ Awkward ] is remixing a narrative/comic book album, The Red Sentence , for me." Supposedly, according to Awkward , "DROMEDARY" is "just a taster and there will be more to come. Perhaps, so...

Happy New Year to all of our trusty readers! 2020 marks 10 consecutive years of The Witzard, which is a little hard to believe, even for me! It's been a great ride thus far and we greatly appreciate everyone that visits and supports our site on a regular basis! I'm hoping to do a full site re-design in 2020 (something I've wanted to do for a few years!) but my wife and I are expecting our first child this Summer... so, we'll just have to see what happens, honestly. Hope everyone had a happy and safe holidays season! Here's a selection of new singles that were released over the holidays; let's just call it a best of 2019 year-end/2020 kick-off singles feature. Truth be told, these are some of our favorite artists here at The Witzard and we're excited to see/hear what they have in store for 2020! Festive Beastie Boys artwork courtesy of Pollywog Crew (@pollywogcrew.) Sincerely, Matt "The Witzard" Horowitz It's A New Year, Wavy Baby! ...

Posse In Effect 1 by POSSE IN EFFECT Not entirely unlike Peanut Butter Wolf, Madlib, Egon & John Doe , dj BC, Jeremiah Jae , and TT5BR before him, Awkward has unleashed a 10-track collection of Beastie Boys remixes fittingly called POSSE IN EFFECT 1 . Awkward is a UK -based producer/emcee/artist/DJ with affiliation to Los Angeles crew The Cloaks and Bristol 's Ghost.Locust Music . He has previously worked with clipping. The Kleenrz, Nocando , Open Mike Eagle, Self Jupiter (Freestyle Fellowship,) Third Sight, Zackey Force Funk , and Malakai's Stepchild AKA Stepasaur. We, here at The Witzard , actually, first heard about Awkward after he mastered Roughneck Jihad 's recent compilation album, The Red Herring Mixtape . In conjunction with Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz & Michael "Mike D" Diamond 's newly-released memoir, BEASTIE BOYS BOOK , Awkward has collected 10 choice cuts from throughout The Beasties' storied three decades-long caree...