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...

"Me, Dan [Edinberg] (from The Stepkids ), and Chuck [Inglish] got together and made the instrumental. Me and Chuck were got connected 'cause we were already working... on the Kali Uchis album. Dan was visiting me in LA ; so, we got together and made the beat. We were really interested in combining elements... that haven't been combined before. It was the Summertime , so we were feeling a certain way. We hypothesized on what it would sound like to... combine South American [Bachata] music with Trap . Needles to say, when we started making the music, we all got super excited at this new sound... After that, Trinidad Jame$ came in and set the tone for lyrics and melody," producer, guitarist, and song-writer @JeffGitelman wrote within a Twitter -sent statement; "WunderLAnd," the aforementioned track, was released roughly 10 days ago, following Chuck Inglish 's instrumental project Texturizer and Blended Babies -produced Ev Zepplin . "The son...

"The "Wolves" song came from a conversation that me and Drake had, where we was going to do an album together and the album was called Wolves ... me and Jay [started] talking about Watch The Throne , then Drake went and did all the records with [Lil'] Wayne and did the tour," Kanye unexpectedly revealed to The Breakfast Club radio host and one-time Catfish co-detective Charlamagne The God last February on the heels of his spirited SNL 40 medley. Lest we forget that Kanye once produced Drake 's 808's & Heartbreak -reminiscent "Find Your Love;" making Kanye 's recent " Yeezy , Yeezy, Yeezy, just jumped over Jumpman " What a Time to Be Alive interpolation and apparent Drake diss all the more perplexing. Not entirely unlike Paul McCartney -assisted "Only One" released over New Year's Eve 2014-15 , "FACTS" was quietly uploaded to Soundcloud mere hours ahead of this year's annual New Yea...

"Remember one night, I went to Erykah [Badu 's] house, she made tea for me. We talked about love and what life could really be for me. She said, "when that sh*t is real, you just know," Canada 's #1 Rap-Singer Drake crooned of an apparent tea-date with Miss Badu on "Days In The East." While it may or may not actually be a fictionalized re-telling, Drake and Erykah Badu 's mutual admiration doesn't seem to end with "Days In The East;" without any prior warning, Erykah-She ILL-Badu suddenly uploaded her slightly wordy "HOTLINE BLING BUT U CAINT USE MY PHONE MIX" to her newly-minted Soundcloud page Friday evening. ANALOUGE GIRL {IN A DGITAL WORLD} aka THE MIGHTY AFRO DIGHTY herself plays bells, in addition to providing original vocal accompaniment, on "HOTLINE BLING" along with her cast of highly skilled players: producer/keyboardist Zach Witness , guitarist Ben Hixon , and Ethan Worland on "brushes...

"Jesus Christ, #LunchMoney make me wanna sucker-punch 14 Elk in the nose. Might be my fav @PUSHA_T backdrop since #Trill or #RideAroundShinin ," Tonight Show bandleader @questlove exuberantly Tweeted. Former Clipse emcee Pusha T is supposedly holed up in the studio with Pharrell/The Neptunes , Kanye, and rookie producer Hudson Mohawke , earnestly working on the follow-up to his impeccable solo debut, My Name Is My Name (2013), tentatively titled "King Push." Early Tuesday morning without any prior rhyme or reason, a new thumping Kanye -produced track appeared on Google Play all of a sudden, which quickly disappeared; it was later premiered on Funkmaster Flex 's radio show and soon thereafter, spread like wildfire across The Internet. " Kanye 's best for ["Lunch Money"] is a gurgling, lurching soup of confusing, disorienting sounds, but all those sounds are built around a very basic, very funky pulse," Stereogum's very o...

Released just a few mere hours after "Open Letter" [below] and Tweeted along with a Kanye -fied message, "Our family HOV brought that real Hip-Hop shit this morning, so me and Pusha T wanna keep that feeling going." G.O.O.D. Music approved, Kanye/Don Cannon co-produced, and DONDA -commissioned artwork... "Numbers on The Boards" pulls a Jay-Z vocal sample from "Intro/A Million & One Questions/Rhyme No More" (1997). I'm pretty white and I still caught the whole "Ballers, I put numbers on the boards" basketball reference utilized on the track's hook. "Numbers on The Boards" is Pusha T 's first major release since his critically-acclaimed Wrath of Caine mixtape @ the top of the year; It might re-appear on My Name Is My Name , his long-rumored solo debut, which should be out sometime this upcoming May. Not unlike "Open Letter," from a sonic perspective, "Numbers on The Boards" ...

Anyone remember a period in time... oh, maybe 10-12 years ago when guys like Lil' Wayne & Fred Durst were still socially relevant and putting out 1/2 decent music? The most interesting thing that Lil' Wayne 's done in recent memory was going into a spurt of codeine-induced seizures (allegedly) and Limp Bizkit signed to his label, Cash Money around this time last year, supposedly broke up , and re-formed since. Needless to say, a Limp Bizkit/Wayne collabo would've likely sounded pretty AWESOME, had it been released between Chocolate Starfish & The Hot Dog Flavored Water and Tha Carter III (2000-08). But as rough as I've made this track sound so far, if Lil' Wayne 's still going for that whole slightly dated sleaze-soaked Rap-Rock vibe, Limp Bizkit 's probably your go-to band of knuckleheads. "Ready to Go" has been in-the-works for the larger part of a year, since initially inking a deal with Cash Money , and was finally unlea...

Anyone remember around like 200-05 when Paris Hilton somehow managed to coin the phrase, "That's HOT!" (loosely meaning crazy, sexy, cool)? Well, I feel like that's kinda how MTV ranks their equally ridiculous annual Hottest MC's list, cause Hip-Hop 's such a hard thing to quantize/generalize; It's more about sheer passion, love/loss, money, girls, heartbreak, shared experience(s), etc. While MTV has yet to reveal a finalized list, here's their partial rankings: Meek Mill , Future, A$AP Rocky , Kanye, Big Sean , Drake, Nas , and Rick Ross (#10-3). Kanye soon called into Hot 97 , basically lampooning MTV VJ Sway and the network's rapper-ranking process, "I mean, I gave Sway his first TV, man... I was living in Newark [NJ] doing beats for Jay-Z and Beans and all them, and I was getting a new TV and I gave Sway his first TV. I didn't really wanna like even call to talk about the [Hottest MC's] list. I just wanna tell every...