The Witzard

Lor Shaman by URBN SHMN URBN SHMN (pronounced "Urban Shaman" ) AKA KendalL Ca$h is a Baltimore -based producer/beat-maker originally hailing from DMV —otherwise known as District (DC)/Maryland/Virginia —who was formerly a B-more area DJ. I actually, first heard about URBN SHMN earlier this morning, after long-time The Witzard affiliate and collaborator John "Jumbled" Bachman FWD'ed me an email from The Urban Shaman himself; fittingly titled " Urbn Shmn is taking lofi to Datpiff ," it contained URBN SHMN 's latest mixtape, Lor Shaman . It's been widely referred to as a " summer '18 mixtape" by URBN SHMN himself and contains remixes of chart-topping hits by Childish Gambino , Desiigner, Drake , Future, Gucci Mane , Lil Yachty, Migos , Rihanna, and more. While showcased on a recent episode of Baltimore FLIPS. URBN SHMN readily shared his sources of inspiration and influence, which includes Flying Lotus , Madlib, J Dill...

Not entirely unlike it's highly-revered Classic/Indie Rock predecessors Sgt. Pepper's and The Blue Album , sample grand-wizard Gregg Gillis aka Girl Talk ultimately intended for his latest body of work, Broken Ankles EP to function as "a continuous mix and it intended to be listened to as a while with gap-less playback." The Pittsburgh native then recruited veteran emcee Freeway from the neighboring suburb of Philadelphia to overlay gritty complex rhyme schemes atop his multi-layered 6-track mini-album, which somehow still manages to sample everyone from Aretha Franklin to Nine Inch Nails . For the purposes of this very EP, Girl Talk & Freeway have both slightly modified their respective styles, but not to the point that it's beyond recognizable or would endanger alienating long-time fans. I'm actually a little surprised at how good most of Girl Talk 's beats sound; they're 100% full-fledged Hip-Hop beats with sufficient room for additi...

While I've been an avid supporter of Girl Talk aka civilian engineer Gregg Gillis' hyper-disoriented (s)mash-up style since the initial media on-slaught of Night Ripper (2006), I never thought I'd see the day when he'd commit a full-fledged collaboration with a real-life rapper to wax, let alone former Roc-A-Fella affiliate and Philly native, Freeway ; to the best of my knowledge, Gillis hasn't worked alongside an emcee since his 2011 Pitchfork Selector -initiated Jim Jones track, "Believe In Magic." It seems as though Broken Ankles is just a small chunk of a recorded, albeit unreleased, body of work, the first of which will become available for FREE download this upcoming April 8th. "Tolerated"' s Allen Cordell -directed video treatment is loosely inspired by late 90's Brit -hit "Bittersweet Symphony." "I just thought it'd be cool to do a video where the premise is me and Freeway walking down the street and ...

I recently found myself describing Brandon McCartney as, "[ Lil B ]'s TOTALLY "mental," yet fucking genius! Like if Biz Markie was off his meds." With that said, let me clarify that I'm a long-time fan of both Biz and Lil B . I harvest a certain amount of respect for anyone who's able to get that un-hinged, honest, and revealing. 9 times out of 10, Lil B employs the "#BASED" [stream-of-conscious] rapping technique throughout his original compositions. Since the June release of "street album," I'm Gay, Lil B has somehow managed to release 2-4 mixtapes - Roughly one every 2-3 weeks. The Silent President is the latest mixtape liberated in this string of on-going releases. Highlighted here, for your listening pleasure, are "Great China Sea" and "Beat the Cancer:" Freestyles over Kanye/Jay-Z and Metallica -driven beats, respectively. If that sounds like it just might pique your interest... or if Lil B ...