The Witzard

So, The Witzard regulars may recognize the artwork/overall style displayed above to be that of one Patrick "Pat" Quinn AKA Pecue Design or simply, Pecue . Quinn previously designed the "top-billing" movie poster-sized feature artwork for our Beastie Boys Paul's Boutique 30th Anniversary All-around Breakdown (PB30) last year. Basically, I just gave Pecue the idea to take inspiration from one of my personal favorite Beasties lyrics, "I'mma Die Harder... like my kid, Bruce Willis!" and he just ran with it, incorporating elements from the Paul's Boutique cover, the iconic Capitol Records Building , Willis' beloved character John McClane , and, of course, the Beastie Boys themselves. Not only is Pecue a Philadelphia/South Florida-based designer, but he's, also, a producer in his own right; having released a slew of instrumentals, remixes, and the like on his own Bandcamp page, as well as on his newly-minted imprint, Sole Imperial ,...

Since the start of Nation-wide self-quarantines about a month ago, Bronx, New York producer and multi-instrumentalist Ray West has been steadily recording and self-releasing projects on his imprint, RED APPLES 45 . For Week #1, RED APPLES treated terribly unsuspecting fans/onlookers to West's WALTER PPK EP , an Instrumental Hip-Hop split with fellow producer Giallo Point . A week later, saw the release of STRESS RELIEF , which features Dynamix emcee Junclassic alongside Ray West across a Name-Your-Price 5-track EP. Week #3 marked the surprise-release of Ray West & Eloh Kush 's IMPETUS EP featuring guest emcees Glorious , John Robinson, ID4Windz , and Jahbaton. We've been playing close attention and intently listening to April's RED APPLES 45 releases... although, we have to admit, Week #4's teased drop definitely intrigued us the most: this past Friday, April 16, 2020, saw the release of West's Rowhouse Whispers . For this latest release, Ray West re...

August Heat by Ialive John "Jumbled" Bachman was one of the many talented artists, writers, and Beastie Boys super-fans who contributed to our recent 3-part PB30 All-around Breakdown feature and now, he's returned with his second self-released full-length of 2019, AUGUST HEAT . Jumbled 's first long-form project since January 2019's Padre , AUGUST HEAT is just as it sounds: 17 tracks-worth of sweltering instrumental beats and emcee-assisted vocal tracks. "In early June, Jumbled compiled a list of his heat: heavy Boom-Bap beats that meshed together to create an album," explains a press release. John Bachman goes on to define "heat (noun)" as "1. hot beats / raps, 2. oppressively hot or humid weather, 3. pressure" and then, somehow, manages to reference a JAY-Z rhyme from "Light Up" alongside Drake: "Triple entendre, don't even ask me how." Although, originally conceived as a single-emcee affair, AUGUST...

Summah Stoop by Call Out Culture (Alaska & Zilla Rocca) feat Curly Castro Late last night, I received a Bandcamp Notification email from Wrecking Crew—Curly Castro, PremRock, Small Professor & Zilla Rocca—about their latest stand-alone single, "Summah Stoop" by Call Out Culture: Alaska x Curly Castro x Zilla Rocca. Essentially, this is the Call Out Culture Podcast Crew consisting of Alaska, Curly Castro & Zilla Rocca... but there's, also, a similarly named Hip-Hop crew consisting of Alaska & Zilla unofficially/FKA ZILLASKA. Those who know, will know this is FAR from Zilla Rocca & Alaska's first time collaborating together, but for those who may be unaware, Alaska & Zilla previously worked together on a number of occasions, including: "Return of The Angst" from Alaska's ALKAST EP/WORDS HURT's ALKAST:REMIXES from 2015, "Debuild" with Defcee from Curly Castro & Fakts One's RESTROY & DEBUILD, WORDS HURT...

Hangar Rarities by HANGAR 18 For this article, I've decided to employ one of the oldest writing tactics from deep within my journalistic bag-of-tricks: "WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, HOW, WHY..." Hangar 18 was Hip-Hop crew consisting of emcees ALASKA & Windnbreeze and DJ paWL . Hangar 18 , named after the Megadeath song of the same name, was together from 1994-2009 and released two albums— The Multi-Platinum Debut (2004) and Sweep The Leg (2007)— El-P 's legendary and now-defunct Definitive Jux Records AKA Def Jux . Hangar 18 also, self-released both THE SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION CD (2003) and a 2006 compilation album entitled The Donkey Show, Volume 1 with remixes and features from Cryptic AKA Cryptic One , Blockhead, Aesop Rock , Bill G. and Blueprint . Hangar 18 's members were also, part of larger New York/Tri-State Area crew Atoms Family , along with Cryptic One , DJ Cip-One, Jestoneart , Kasm, Molecule , Whichcraft, Genesis , Osirrus, Cannibal Ox ...

The Attitude by WORDS HURT THE ATTITUDE EP is the latest release from ALASKA & Lang Vo 's group, WORDS HURT . Although, it consists of 9 tracks, the EP only clocks in at just under 11:30 with the longest track lasting a frantic minute and 55 seconds. As many of you may remember, Lang Vo , actually, mentioned WORDS HURT 's then-unnamed EP within The Witzard 's December 2017 interview with both ALASKA & Lang : "I think, this time around, we were mostly dealing with fresh-ish material, on both ends. We actually made a whole EP and were going to release it for fun, but scrapped it and started over and made SOUL MUSIC FOR THE SOULLESS . We are still going to release that EP for free soon..." As Lang Vo mentioned, WORDS HURT in fact, recorded THE ATTITUDE EP prior to their 2017 full-length, SOUL MUSIC FOR THE SOULLESS , and initially, intended to release it before or in place of the album. While you may not hear it right off the bat, THE ATTITUDE EP was...

Over the course of the past month or so, there have been a plethora of solid Hip-Hop EP's released online; a quick, concise 30-minutes or less format that's seemingly, replaced the mixtape/"street album" format of years passed to become your favorite underground rapper/producer's go-to promotional tool. Here, for this inaugural edition of The Witzard's Rap EP Wrap-up, we'll be profiling eight EP's released throughout March 2018, as well as two released at the end of February that were honestly, way too dope to not include! Featured below, in no particular order, are EP's from the likes of ALASKA & PJ Katz, Elaquent, Epic Beard Men (Sage Francis & B. Dolan,) Luke Sick & Damien *, Madlib & J Dilla's proteges MED AKA Medaphoar & Guilty Simpson, Loretta Records founder Observe, Roughneck Jihad & IL Torsolo *, SULTANS OF SPRING touring mates PremRock & Fresh Kils, and Purple Dialect, as well as a posthumous Illa Ghee-as...

Over the course of the past month or so, there have been a plethora of solid Hip-Hop EP's released online; a quick, concise 30-minutes or less format that's seemingly, replaced the mixtape/"street album" format of years passed to become your favorite underground rapper/producer's go-to promotional tool. Here, for this inaugural edition of The Witzard's Rap EP Wrap-up, we'll be profiling eight EP's released throughout March 2018, as well as two released at the end of February that were honestly, way too dope to not include! Featured below, in no particular order, are EP's from the likes of ALASKA & PJ Katz, Elaquent, Epic Beard Men (Sage Francis & B. Dolan,) Luke Sick & Damien *, Madlib & J Dilla's proteges MED AKA Medaphoar & Guilty Simpson, Loretta Records founder Observe, Roughneck Jihad & IL Torsolo *, SULTANS OF SPRING touring mates PremRock & Fresh Kils, and Purple Dialect, as well as a posthumous Illa Ghee-as...

Tim "ALASKA" Baker (@alaska_ATOMS) and Lang Vo (@langkimvo) are two aging "Rap Dads," I believe, I met on Twitter about a year or so ago. Both Lang & Tim had note-worthy Hip-Hop careers during the late 1990's to early 2000's and then, took periods of self-imposed sabbaticals to get married, have kids, and do other things Rap Dads do. Now, ALASKA & Lang Vo are back in full-force and collaborating as WORDS HURT. Lang met Tim around 2014-15 when the Def Jux vet enlisted the former's skills behind the boards to properly mix his then-latest project, OutKast-remixing ALKAST. ALASKA also had a verse on "Impulse Control" alongside emcee Elsphinx from Lang Vo...Is Just An A**hole. Not long after, Lang hi-jacked Tim's acapellas to make his own remix collection entitled ALKAST:REMIXES , which would soon become the first official WORDS HURT release. What we have here, is the third part in a 3-pronged initiative—a collaboration between The Witz...

"My name is Lang Vo. I'm one half of WORDS HURT with Def Jux alum ALASKA and the other half of the group REINFORCED STEEL with my friend and sage, Kwamizzle. I've been producing and making beats for the last 20+ years. Back in the heyday, before I had kids, I used to work the Columbus, Ohio scene and did shows with Camu Tao and opened for his group, S.A. Smash. I've opened for Atmosphere, Mr. Lif [& Akrobatik AKA] The Perceptionists, Blueprint with Soul Position [RJD2], etc. Although, I never hit "The Big Time," I had a great time back then. My last show was a show with Killah Priest in 2009. Once I started having kids, I still made music and did a few shows here and there in Austin, Texas, but staying out late and having drunk people dump beer on my equipment didn't seem as fun anymore. I didn't pick it back up again seriously, until I started working with Alim Wade, a rapper in Atlanta. He started sending my beats out to people like Kool A.D. ...

Soul Music for the Soulless by WORDS HURT "The single is called "World's Worst Life Coach." It is from the album SOUL MUSIC FOR THE SOULLESS , which drops on Tuesday, November 28th and is available for pre-order. It is a comical take on New Age bullsh*t, personal branding, life coaches, and modern conformity," Words Hurt said within statement accompanying "World's Worst Life Coach," premiering right here at The Witzard . Words Hurt consists of emcee ALASKA and producer Lang Vo , who first worked together on "Impulse Control" from Lang Vo... Is Just An A**hole (2005.) ALASKA has been rhyming for nearly a quarter century and as part of the late 90's New York Indie-ground scene, his group Hanger 18 was once signed to El-P 's world-renown Definitive Jux AKA Def Jux imprint. He's also part of The Atoms Family collective and has released projects with Cryptic One as IT , Crack Epidemic with Kojo, ATOMS , Zilla Rocc...

"Hi people, my name is Cryptic One, a producer from Brooklyn, NY and I have been making beats since 1989. Yes, you read that correctly, I am THAT old. With that said, when asked to write about a few albums that had an influence on my production, I was initially overwhelmed with a seemingly infinite number of important works to mention. After long deliberation, I narrowed it down to these five; keep in mind that on any given day, I could easily pick five different picks that were just as important to me. So, with no further ado, here is my Beat-maker Bedrock:" I AM by IT I. Jungle Brothers - Straight Out The Jungle (1988) "This was the record that helped me understand how sample-based beats were made. The whole album was great and a big influence on me, but specifically, there is one song from the album that really set things off for me: "[Because] I Got It Like That." But first, a little background/history: In the 80's, Hip-Hop wasn't th...