The Witzard

I've recently been reading Shea Serrano 's phenomenal New York Times best-selling The Rap Yearbook (a Hanukkah present from my wonderful girlfriend), in which he evaluates, ranks, and proceeds to meticulously break down "the most important rap song" from every year between 1979-2014. I would honestly, be flat out lying, if I said it hasn't largely affected the way I look at Hip-Hop singles in the grand scheme of the genre as a whole over the past few weeks; with that said, I would even go as far as to claim that Kanye 's repeatedly upped, deleted, re-upped, deleted again, etc. double-header "Real Friends & No More Parties In LA" is quite arguably the most important Hip-Hop song of 2016. Its first 3/4's, "Real Friends," was collectively produced by Kanye, Frank Dukes, Boi-1da , and Mobb Deep co-founder Havoc and features a half-sung/rapped hook delivered by Ty Dolla $ign , while its latter 1/4 was hand-crafted by Stones T...

"BIG UPS TO THIS NEW @DRAKE FIRE PROD. BY @FRANKDUKES [AND] @BOI1DA FT. @RIVERTIBER ON THE PART 2 VOCALS #NOTELLIN #6HITZ," @badbadnotgood frantically Tweeted upon the release of Drake 's surprise mixtape/album , IF YOUR READING THIS ITS TOO LATE , late last month. That very track, Tiber aka Tommy Paxon-Beesley 's own original composition, "No Talk" went unreleased... until yesterday afternoon when The FADER premiered it; "I've been working with Frank Dukes for a minute. He made a dope sample with my vocal stem, which Boi-1da put drums on top of, and I guess Drake liked the beat and recorded to it," BBNG -affiliated multi-instrumentalist River Tiber lamented to The FADER . "No Talk" is a glitchy Electro /percussion-aided emotive track, which in its original form, honestly, doesn't sound all that far removed from your typical Emo-Rap Drake beat. While it seems as though they might have sampled "No Talk"...

Talib Kweli 's latest mixtape, Attack The Block is a loose [street] album that's loosely based around a British Sci-Fi Thriller of the same name (2011). Kweli does his best to bridge that gap, effectively re-appropriating film dialog for his intro track, "Attack The Block!!!" Talib Kweli has always been a fairly active, politically- conscious rapper ever since he first burst onto the scene with Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star (1998). Surprisingly, Attack The Block was actually released a few weeks earlier than expected... on Sept. 3rd, Labor Day Weekend instead of Sept. 18th. Co-presented along with DJ Z-Trip , the mixtape really is a generous offering - 18 tracks deep, 6 solo Kweli raps. It looks like Talib Kweli has managed to rope in some serious favors and scored guest verses from Black Thought , Skyzoo, Das Racist , Lil' Wayne, Killer Mike , Posdnuos (De La Soul), Ryan Leslie , Mac Miller, and Ab-Soul ... In addition to production work fro...

Honesty is key in life, blogging, and music. With that said, I've been a moderate fan of Aubrey "Drake" Graham since the beginning; Keeping up to date with his assorted releases, for the most part... But I must admit, I strongly favor a handful of songs over the bulk of Drake 's backcataloged entries. I just wish that Mr. Graham would either stick with rapping or run with singing R&B stylings - As I, and other fans, would then indeed garner a lot more respect for him as an artist. From the looks of this newly-released Lamar Taylor & Hyghly Alleyne -directed video, it seems as though Drake has fully embraced a SWAGGER -filled "Rap" persona, as of late. Excluding "Over" (2010), "Headlines" is by far the strongest original Drake composition I've heard since So Far Gone 's break-out hit, "Best I Ever Had" (2009). Universal Republic is pushing this hard-hitting Boi-1da/Noah "40" Shebib -crafted ban...