The Witzard

Marcel Theo Hall, better know as Biz Markie and oftentimes, affectionately referred to as The Biz, The Clown Prince of Hip-Hop, The Inhuman Orchestra, The Diabolical Biz Markie, and The Emizah-Emizah, was highly revered as one of the most genuine emcees to ever do it. Biz passed away on Friday, July 16, 2021 at the tender age of 57, likely due to complications from Type 2 Diabetes, although, no official Cause of Death has been revealed just yet. Biz Markie is most well-known for his infectious 1989 break-out single, "Just A Friend," but he was a truly multi-talented artist, as well. Biz Mark's lesser-known talents included beat-boxing, dancing, producing, DJ'ing, acting, singing, and song-writing. It was proven time and time again that "Nobody Beats The Biz," but he surely didn't mind collaborating with just about anyone; racking up genre-defying features with everyone from the Beastie Boys to Spin Doctors. Biz's film and television appearances...

The Heliocentrics, DOOM & Percee P (CREDIT: The GTAsoldier AKA Errol718) Honestly, it doesn't even feel like there's a proper way to elegize an eccentric and extremely talented artist such as MF DOOM, who meant so much to so many of us for so many years for so many different reasons as truly unique as DOOM himself. So, what better way to pay tribute to The Man, The Myth, THE MASK himself than by speaking to those closest to him? With a heavy heart, I proudly present Shadows of Tomorrow; a new recurring column in tribute to DOOM in an effort to re-tell the tall tales, strange stories, and lesser-known tidbits of The Metal Face Villain himself. R.I.P. Daniel "MF DOOM" Dumile Thompson. "Basically, through Egon, we were able to get Percee P to do vocals over an instrumental arrangement of "Distant Star," the first version of which was mixed by our friend and, at the time, Sydney-based co-producer of The Heliocentrics, Mike Burnham. We recorded horns...

"We've been getting a lot of questions about a collaborative album that Madlib & Mac Miller supposedly created. Here's the real story: What exists is what the two had originally intended—an EP's worth of music that was supposed to be the start of something. The end point wasn't planned out or even discussed. The idea was to create for creation's sake. The two met after Mac recorded the last verse on Freddie Gibbs' Piñata album. By early, 2015 Mac had batches of Madlib's beats and was recording songs. The two ate tacos at Eagle Rock's Cacao Mexicatessen and discussed ideas. Madlib played one of Mac's tracks in July of 2016 at a European festival and Egon texted Mac to tell him; "Whaaat, what song, why isn't there any video evidence!!!" was the reply. Followed by "Let's do an EP." This process continued throughout 2017, as Mac got the latest beat batches, continued recording, and continued his commitment to th...

"Back in the 90's, when I first got on the phone with Biz Markie, he told me he had a 7-inch of my favorite Donovan song, "Get Thy Bearings," with an instrumental flip. "Why did you rap over the vocal on "I Told You?'" I asked. "I sampled the instrumental and put the vocals back in because it sounded better," was his reply. Four years after that conversation, I worked with @danube_productions [The Sand Dollars] and we actually, created a "Get Thy Bearings" A/B-side combo, as The Biz described, in homage to one of the greatest record collectors Hip-Hop produced. As deep as Biz is, though, he didn't have Apple & The Three Oranges' LA über-rarity, "Moon Light," one of my dude Madlib's favorite Soul songs. Mine, too. It's one of @cutchemist's, too. He and Biz made a song around it for his latest album [Die Cut]. Peep his Bio for more info. "Moon Light! Clear skies!" Love that sh*t....

Mr. Dibbs is a world-renown DJ, turntablist, and producer hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio. Dibbs is the founder of ever-evolving DJ crew 1200 Hobos, is the co-founder of "America's Largest Hip-Hop Festival," Scribble Jam , and has had a career-long allegiance to Atmosphere's Slug & Ant, Sab The Artist & Siddiq's Rhymesayers Ent. For years, Mr. Dibbs served as the touring DJ for Atmosphere, El-P, Run The Jewels, and Eyedea. Dibbs' music has appeared on countless soundtracks and compilations, including, but not limited to Alien Workshop's Photosynthesis, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, Tony Hawk's Underground (THUG,) and Peanut Butter Wolf's My Vinyl Weighs a Ton , as well as numerous Warped Tour comps. Over the course of his storied career, Mr. Dibbs has worked with the likes of The Black Keys, Buck 65, cLOUDDEAD, doseone & Jel (as Presage,) DJ Mayonnaise, El-P, Felt, Gym Class Heroes, MURS, Playdough, Sage Francis, Terror, Themselves, and...

"So, tomorrow, my first single in over a decade will be available everywhere. Throughout this layoff, there's been pain, self-sabotage, tears, missed opportunities, waiting, more waiting, distrust, frustration, salvation, hard work, love, setbacks, and finally, the blessing to make the album of my dream," LA -based "Ho-Wop" crooner Eamon wrote within a heart-felt Facebook post this past Thursday afternoon. "Be My Girl" is Eamon 's first single in over a decade, his first since "(How Could You) Bring Him Home?" from his 2006 sophomore album, Love & Pain . Many of you, much like myself, may remember Eamon from his break-out hit for Jive Records , "F**k It (I Don't Want You Back)" released back in 2006, which I believe was one of the first radio hits I had ever heard with a [bleeped out] curse word. "I'm back with a hunger like I haven't had since I was a 10-year-old kid singing with my father and the...

“There’s a song on there called "Shine Your Light" ["This Little Light"] and it’s about people being more aware about things happening in their government and the society around them. Using that awareness to spread light to other people about what’s going on,” Aloe Blacc revealed during a 2011 interview with Cuepoint @ Medium Managing Editor & Co-creator Mike "DJ" Pizzo . Blacc was referring to his Joanna Newsom "The Book of Right-On" (or The Roots "Right On" )-sampling "Shine Your Light," now slightly re-titled "This Little Light," from his long-rumored comeback with 1999-2006 rapper-producer group Emanon . It appears as though Aloe Blacc 's Exile -produced Dystopia EPx2 , which was somewhat surprised released this past Blacc(k) Friday , has been completed in some form since around 2011 and back then, may have been called either Bird's Eye View or Bullet ; " Emanon ’s Bird’s Eye View has...

" Remixes & Versions is a very personal project to me. I come from a school of sampling and beat-digging and remixing this long-lost classic just brings it back to life. It's like when I first heard Madlib use some old Krautrock stuff; I loved Madlib 's Hip-Hop beats and I was brought up on Krautrock , so this connection just spoke to me. When I listened to the Paternoster album that Madlib 's manager Eothen [Egon] Alapatt sent to me, I was drawn to its Psychedelic textures and heavy drum breaks," my one-time interview subject and friend Stephan Szillus wrote within a recent email. He's in fact, releasing a remix album of the very band whose music our interview was centered around; Now-Again Reserve: Paternoster , on which Stephan Szillus acted as Egon 's "cultural and business liaison" and maybe most importantly, personal German-English translator. "I immediately thought about what might happen, if some Hip-Hop or Electroni...

Chicago-bred writer Ronnie Reese has had the unique opportunity to pen a number of Stones Throw on-site press releases – including Mayer Hawthorne, WHITE BOIZ, Myron & E, and Tony Cook – J Dilla's online biography, countless pieces for Wax Poetics, a number of Blue Note re-issues, and Dilla's posthumous 2007 Ruff Draft EP re-issue; although, Reese very well may have just written the single most important pieces of his career... the expansive liner notes for Now-Again's recently assembled compilation of Dilla's long-lost "MCA album," now re-titled THE DIARY . J Dilla's nixed MCA album, otherwise formerly known as "Pay Jay," would have featured outsourced production work from the likes of House Shoes, Nottz, Karriem Riggins, Hi-Tek, Madlib, and Pete Rock and is arguable, as coveted by Hip-Hop heads as a beat-laden version of The Beach Boys' long-fabled and heavily bootlegged SMiLE. I've recently been in contact with Ronnie Reese, whose...

Freddie Gibbs , to the best of my knowledge, has never released a proper mixtape in the typical fashion of Hip-Hop culture; a cohesive collection of re-appropriated beats borrowed from popular artists and "freestyled" over, which are given away for FREE or next to nothing. However, it would appear as though that very notion might change soon enough, as Rappcats/Madlib Invazion have unveiled plans to release a limited run silk-screened 12-inch containing "Cocaine Parties In LA" and its sparse instrumental on Side B. Gibbs previously unleashed a cocaine-laden remix of Kanye & Kendrick Lamar 's Madlib -produced G.O.O.D. Fridays (Vol. 2) submission and eventual The Life of Pablo bonus track, "No More Parties In LA." It's reportedly a track left on the cutting room floor, for whatever reasons, during the recording of Kanye 's sprawling 2010 album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy , just one composition from six CD-R's-worth of hazy...

Full disclosure: Lions producer-guitarist and founding member Dan Ubick and I are friends, frequent collaborators, and mutual fans of each others' collected bodies of work (or at least, I would like to think so). With that said, it's really a no-brainer that nearly any given time Ubick and his number of creative outlets decide to unleash genre-blending music upon the unsuspecting world, I'm ecstatic to have the opportunity to write a piece centered around it; I've previously had the wonderful opportunity to interview Dan twice before, coinciding with the releases of The Lions' This Generation and Soul Riot, as well as having the coveted honor to premier their Ross Harris-directed Clash re-interpretation, "The Magnificent Dance." In addition to The Lions and former Stones Throw-signed Funk/Breakbeat group Breakestra, Ubick has been fortunate enough to work with everyone from Snoop Lion to storied emcee Big Daddy Kane and even formed his own The Beatles/S...

" Dilla spent the better part of 2002 working on an album for MCA that featured his rapping over contributions from other producers with whom he had connected and whose music he respected. At the time, he was known primarily for his beats, yet reviled for his [emceeing] by mist anyone not from his hometown of Detroit . The project was to be an intentional freak of the industry," Chicago writer and film-maker Ronnie Reese wrote within his liner notes accompanying Stones Throw 's 2007 expanded re-issue of Ruff Draft EP . J Dilla 's ultimately scrapped and indefinitely shelved '02 MCA Album , or "Pay Jay," as it's long been referred, was recorded between his widely underrated BBE solo debut Welcome 2 Detroit and adventurous stylistic shift that materialized across Ruff Draft EP during his relocation from Detroit to LA . " Dilla had agreed to a one-year contract on MCA with an option for a second, provided he produced two accepted releas...

"The venerable Austrian rock-scribe Johan "Hans" Pokora was the most welcoming–he, through his Record Collectors' Dreams books, had first canonized Paternoster, bestowing upon the album his highest honor of six-stars (the rarest of rare records) and also placing next to it his "symbol-of-music" ... He had kept two copies of the album–one with a proto-type, hand-colored cover–and he traded the other to me. That kickstarted this re-issue, as I put out a call to find someone–anyone–who could put me in touch with any of Paternoster's principal members. Stephan Szillus, a German journalist with a Hip-Hop background but with a worldly score, heeded the call and found Franz Wippel," Now-Again Records founder Egon wrote within his extensive 65-page Paternoster re-issue liner notes; referencing a fateful 2014 Instagram post that started a cross-continental journey to track down the long-lost makers of a fabled album that's been compared to everyone fro...

Greenhorn producer, song-writer, and composer Alex Goose has somehow already managed to log studio time with everyone from Weezer to up-and-coming Fool's Gold emcee Donnis and even had an ill-fated opportunity to work on Jay Z 's famed Blueprint 3 , which miraculously, ended up being one of his earliest career-defining moments; "In the spring of 2009, an A&R affiliated with Roc [Nation] got in contact with me. Shortly after, I had the opportunity to submit various tracks for Jay-Z 's long-awaited Blueprint 3 album. Unfortunately, none of them made the final cut... This is what the Blueprint 3 could have been," Goose told okayplayer on the eve of his aptly-titled The Blueprint 3 Outtakes . Six years later, Alex Goose has unleashed his next "solo" project under the creative umbrella of my former interview subject, Egon 's Now-Again re-issue and found records imprint. Egon recruited Goose, who has recently produced radio-friendly hits ...