The Witzard

Ben Merlis in a BOLD T-shirt pictured with Mr. T (CREDIT: Wyatt Lavasseur) I think about the intersection of Punk & Hip-Hop quite often. Both are street-level genres that were initially rejected by the mainstream, chided for not being "real music." Punks had to book shows at VFW halls and DJ crews set up in public parks well before most of the performers or audience was of drinking age. Both fostered fanatical devotees, who argue that these are, actually, all-encompassing cultures, rather than radio formats or sections in record stores. Being that Punk & Hip-Hop have so much in common, it shouldn't be a surprise that some of the first people outside The Bronx to be bit by "The Rap Bug" were Punks. Dante Ross, who grew up on The Lower East Side of Manhattan going to see bands like Sham 69 wound up doing A&R for Tommy Boy and Elektra, signing groups like Brand Nubian, Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, and K.M.D. One of his bosses back then, Tommy Boy ...

The Chain Gang somehow managed to seamlessly splice together a bunch of stop-motion [animation] clips to construct Sean Price 's latest music video, "STFU (Part 2)." Before it's all said and done, we see Super-Price courageously fending off a pack of angry killer apes with a microphone... getting some calcium fortification, pilot a spaceship, re-enact a couple album covers, run through the jungle, etc. All of Sean Price's milk-fueled hi-jinx were animated by crafty illustrators, Haroon Gilian & Whitney Alexander ; "STFU (Part 2)" will appear on Price's long-awaited Mic Tyson album, along with previously-released tracks "Haraam" and "I See." Rome York directed and released a quick, 1:30-minute music video last week to go along with "I See," which was in fact pre-empted by "Sean Price Plays Tennis" back in early Sept. Duck Down Records are finally gearing up to liberate Mic Tyson on Oct. 3...