The Witzard

Internet -spun legend had to that Chief Keef discovered Polish beat-maker Young Ravisu (Radoslaw Sobieraj) himself in later 2012-13 while perusing YouTube for " Finally Rich -type beats;" after some additional mixing, paperwork, and legal mumbo-jumbo, Young Ravisu 's instrumental slowly morphed into "Citgo." The 2 like-minded 18-year-olds' collaboration eventually ended up appearing as a bonus track on Chief Keef 's commercial debut, Finally Rich . Before this piece goes too far, let me just say that I'm far from a Chief Keef expert/super-fan: I'm really only familiar with him through his Kanye -affiliated tracks, "I Don't Like" (Remix) and more recently, "Hold My Liquor" with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) . Now, nearly 8+ months after it's initial release, "Citgo" has been re-hashed as a proper video-single, more or less. A mere coincidence or not, GBE Ent. also unleashed a 16-track mixtape, Bang P...

What kind of madman would spend the better part of a year recording and re-recording an anti-commercial mainstream Hip-Hop album (if that's even a thing ha) all while his celebutante girlfriend is carrying their unborn baby and steadily nearing her dude date, only to have mega-producer Rick Rubin come in and re-work the entire 10-track collection mere hours before it's deadline!? - Unsurprisingly, Kanye West . It's almost mind boggling how much steam Yeezus has garnered without a proper single or music video, aside from "New Slaves"' building-side projections across the world, and virtually no album track leakage until the Friday before it's Tuesday June 18th release! Aside from all that, Kanye decided to boldly stray away from any sort of legitimate-looking album artwork/packaging, instead opting for the ghetto bootleg CD-R look: no cover or booklet, empty jewel CD case, sparse tracklist on the reverse side, and only a Yeezus -marked piece of red ta...

Rest assured, I guess you could say it was a pretty BIG week for Mr. West , who's finally come back into prominence for something else besides banging a Kardashian or walking into a street sign. Late Friday night Kanye debuted his new pseudo-video for "New Slaves" projected across 66 building sides in 10 major world cities; It's second unreleased 1/2 is rumored to feature Frank Ocean and the track supposedly utilizes an un-cleared sample culled from Hungarian Prog-Rock band, Omega . We're talkin' about guerrilla-style take-overs @ Wrigley Field (Chicago), Brooklyn, Los Angeles , Sydney, London , Paris, etc. projected out of make-shift truck/projectors sprawled across the night sky May 11-19th. This is all most likely part of an early promo campaign in support of Kanye 's upcoming album [possibly titled] "Yeezus," which may or may not be out as early as June 18th. Earlier in the week, he took a break from rigorous recording sessions in Par...

I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that "Numbers On The Board" is my favourite Hip-Hop track of 2013 [so far], although Pusha T is quite honestly far from my favourite rapper. I mean, Wrath of Caine is great and so were/are Clipse . But Pusha T never really had that one stand out, defining moment for me and I think "Numbers On The Board" is finally it! Parisian director/graphic artist So Me filmed it's companion music video during a break in recording sessions for Kanye 's top secret new album; Rumored to feature Daft Punk , Chief Keef, Odd Future , Skrillex, John Legend , and 2 Chainz and could be out as early as June 18th. Kanye & Chief Keef both make brief cameo appearances towards "Numbers On The Board"' s end, pulled from Pusha T 's forthcoming G.O.O.D. Music debut, My Name Is My Name (July 16th). Whilst spitting rapid-fire verses over a gritty Don Cannon co-produced instrumental, Pusha T struts through ...

The New Danger (2004), Mos Def 's STELLAR Hip-Hop/Blues Rock album recorded with Funky cats from Bad Brains, Living Colour , and a few other pioneering African-American Rock bands... has to be one of my favourite albums of ALL TIME! Dante Smith has always been a stylish, righteous, socially conscious rapper, ever since forming Black Star with like-minded friend-musician, Talib Kweli in the mid-90's. Mos Def recently pulled a "Cat Stevens," whole-heartedly converting to Islam , and changed his name to Yasiin Bey . "I Don't Like" is the third release that's been slow leaked from Top 40 Underdog , Bey's upcoming G.O.O.D. Music flip of Modern Radio staples. But don't get it twisted, this surely isn't Mos Def 's first rodeo; He managed to effortlessly re-work both Jay-Z/Kanye 's "The Takeover" and Grandmaster Flash 's "The Message" (1982) on The New Danger . Chief Keef, Lil' Wayne , and T...

Diplo reportedly antied up some $3-5 million to sign "viral rapper" RiFF RAFF to Mad Decent for a staggering 8 album deal; The labelhead also threw in a $45,000 3-D/reversible gold-encrusted Cheshire Cat chain to further sweeten their deal. Over the weekend, RiFF RAFF unveiled his first official [mixtape] project for Mad Decent , BiRTH OF AN iCON . It's basically a collection of 25 re-mastered tracks total, including 7 BRAND NEW productions to hold fans over til his 2013 full-length. 16 of 25 tracks already have music videos , all varying in quality and some of which date way back to Spring 2011. RiFF RAFF 's currently-untitled album will probably be released sooner than later and is supposed to highlight Dubstep production(s) from Diplo, Skrillex , and Rusko . BiRTH OF AN iCON kinda plays out like a "Best Of" collection and it's material was selected from a super-sized mix of old tracks, remixes, and features ... that further display the vast ta...