The Witzard

Let's face it, there are a lot of great (and not-so great) Hip-Hop tracks, music videos, albums, mixtapes, EP's, etc. released on a weekly, if not even daily, basis; a person like myself, who single-handedly runs what I would deem a moderately "successful" publication, whilst working a 9-5, manipulating a relationship with my wonderful girlfriend, family, and friends, and leading a generally hectic existence, there isn't always time to cover every Hip-Hop release I would hypothetically like to within an average week's time. Hence, I've decided to enact a weekly " The Witzard's Week In Rap" (still a working title) column akin to Stereogum 's 5 Best Videos of The Week or Status Ain't Hood , which will hopefully, be published every Friday or Saturday night. It may or may not include songs/videos that I have/hadn't exactly had the chance to cover throughout the course of the week prior and will generally showcase five companion sh...

Guilty Simpson is a seasoned Motor City street-worn, hard as nails emcee, yet quite surprisingly, one of the most genuine, nicest artists I've ever encountered during my 5+ years running The Witzard . Simpson has quietly released a number of nearly flawless albums produced by Madlib , Oh No, Apollo Brown , an ill-fated and ultimately, scrapped album co-produced by J Dilla & Mr. Porter , a 6-song EP recorded with Small Professor, and most recently, my absolute favorite album of 2015, Detroit's Son helmed by Australian producer, Katalyst . I would almost personally attest, as a long-time Guilty Simpson fan and Stones Throw supporter, that his collective non-album material is arguably just as strong, if not even stronger, than his crop of full-length albums; throughout the course of his sprawling 25-year career, Guilty has unleashed acclaimed one-offs with the likes of the late great Dilla , who somehow managed to clear samples of James Brown and The Beatles, Jazz-mi...

I bet that many of you may be fairly familiar with Chairlift and don't even know it. For example, the Boulder, CO Synth Pop group's 2008 track, "Bruises" was used in one of the initial iPod Nano [Chromatic] commercials. Chairlift have been noticeably inactive since the release of their debut long-player, Does You Inspire You? (2008) and lost a founding member, Aaron Pfenning - Now in pursuit of a solo career as "REWARDS." Chairlift 's remaining 2 members have also been focusing on a number of side-efforts, as of late: Songstress Caroline Polachek appeared on Washed Out 's recent lead single, "You and I," in addition to Popular tracks from Flosstradamus and Acrylics . Multi-instrumentalist Patrick Wimberely seems to have struck up quite the friendship with the boys of Das Racist; PatrickWHAT produced 5 individual tracks [this including "Michael Jackson" ] and went on to Executive Produce the entirety of their debut alb...