The Witzard

La Côte West by Henry Canyons Henry Canyons is an LA -based Brooklyn -bred emcee, who, as a self-described "Brooklinite-French-Jew," transcends your typical ideal of what Hip-Hop could and should be; from his training as a Jazz saxophonist to his teenage years spent in Brooklyn ciphers, his melodic style, and bilingual lyrical integrity, Henry Canyons isn't exactly your typical emcee. He evokes a laid-back, yet extremely impactful flow similar in style to one-time Stones Throw signee Jonwayne with a keen ear for heavy-hitting, slightly off-kilter beats akin to Homeboy Sandman . Over the course of his storied career, Canyons has shared the stage with the likes of Macklemore , Tash (Tha Alkaholiks,) Open Mike Eagle , Pigeon Jon, Homeboy Sandman , Blue Scholars, DJ Mo Niklz , and PremRock. Henry Canyons boasts label affiliation with Brooklyn -based "Dystopian Hip-Hop" imprint/collective Backwoodz Studioz , whose current roster includes Armand Hammer (o...

"I guess you were involved in the initial kick-start for the particular project. On my Instagram , I make a lot of random little moving image sketches and one of them, I ended up using a Jonwayne beat from a beat tape called Here You Go that he made for House Shoes' [Street Corner Music.] I think you left a comment on the post and cc'ed Jon , at the time and he dropped me a line to tell me about his new album," animator and director RUFFMERCY wrote within a recent email. I seriously had absolutely NO IDEA I was even remotely "involved" within the "creation" of Jonwayne 's latest RUFFMERCY -directed video, until a few short hours ago. "He thought the sketch I had made for that beat could be a great starting point for the skit/track "LIVE from The F**k You" he had on the album Rap Album Two . We had a little [conversation] on [Instagram] about the aesthetic and a possible idea of half-type, half-something; Jon himself sugg...

Confidence Is Everything 2 by ullnevano x illien rosewell "If something works, stick to it until the chemistry or the spark is no longer there anymore—that's the approach that Baltimore emcee UllNevaNo ("you'll never know") and Norfolk, Virginia producer illien Rosewell decided to go with Confidence Is Everything 2 (CIE2) . Consider it new chapter to last year's first release, which was well-received by Hip-Hop heads and critics alike, to the point where Indie label Already Dead Tapes pressed up limited edition gold tape cassettes," read a pseudo-press release sent by the sharp-tongued emcee himself, UllNevaNo . " CIE2 finds Neva finding his mojo, [comfortably] over illien 's production and it shows over joints like the graveyard-digging "they all die" where it finds the emcees murdering household names and local emcees, to the groovy haunting chills of "12's over the wire," which he got inspired by Skyzoo ...

Let's just go ahead and be completely frank here, Jewish-America 's biggest "claim to fame," if you will, is undoubtedly either Frat-Rap turned Conscious Hip-Hop posse, Beastie Boys or Adam Sandler 's slightly-dated four-part "Chanukah Song" series; until the fateful second night of Hanukkah 2015... when Broooklyn -bred Ukrainian-American emcee Your Old Droog ( Russian for "friend" ) unleashed his latest haphazardly-released non-album loosie, "Off Top Freestyle." Recorded in collaboration with Lower East Side vintage clothing store and quasi-recording studio @topshelfpremium , DJ J Hart -produced "Off Top" was filmed directly onto VHS tape at what would appear to be a retrofitted replica 1990's Modell's ; "somehow, Your Old Droog managed to walk through a Modell's fitting room and ride a time warp back to the Clinton years when we were all playing Number Munchers , watching Snick , and eati...

"Holy sh*t! Here's a new song we made [with] Homeboy Sandman for our show together Friday," now-defunct New York Hip-Hop revivalists Das Racist Tweeted way back when in 2010, promoting a then-upcoming November 5th Southpaw gig along with a pre- Stones Throw Angel del Villar II ; if I remember correctly, "I'm Up On That" was the very first time I had ever been treated to the sweet, rhythmic sounds of Homeboy Sandman , who's comfortably seated as one of Stones Throw 's sharpest emcees. "Here's a new track from Homeboy Sandman , as the MC (and amazing live performer) kicks off a couple weeks of live dates through the east and southern states, culminating with a couple Texas shows with Stones Throw crew [Peanut Butter] Wolf , J Rocc & Guilty Simpson ," Stones Throw wrote in a recent quick-strike press release accompanying Sandman's latest non-album Soundcloud loosie. '"Nonbelievers" produced by EL RNTC . T...

Portishead mastermind Geoff Barrow has spent the majority of the last six months to a year of his life tediously constructing Hip-Hop beats along with fellow Quakers producer Katalyst for inclusion on new-found collaborator Guilty Simpson 's forthcoming DETROIT'S SON record, but he's currently readying a quick-strike 4-track EP with his other, other Krautrock -inspired band, BEAK> and their "alter ego," KAEB (or BEAK> backwards). Barrow and Bristol -based bandmates Billy Fuller and Matt Williams have released two full-length albums and a few miscellaneous projects since forming BEAK> back in 2009, but KAEB was just recently "formed" as an outlet to be used specifically for recording collaborations; as such with "There's No One," which was "written and filmed in one take [one day last year] at Invada Studios Bristol as part of the 4-track BEAK-KAEB EP ," reads an Invada Records -sanctioned press release. ...

"It's been four months since Jonwayne graced our pages with "Good Samaritans." And if you ask me, it's been four months too long. Seemingly disappearing off the face of the Earth (see: he deleted his Twitter posts), fans were left in the dark when it came to the talented emcee's next move – if there was one to begin with," 2dopeboyz post-master Shake lamented in a recent piece published early Wednesday morning. Jonwayne has essentially emitted nothing but radio silence from his assorted social media feeds since around January 2014, following the abrupt end of his 8-part Wayniac Mondays freestyle series and his apparent separation from estranged long-time label, Stones Throw Records . However, @jonwayne abruptly re-surfaced from his self-imposed exile late Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning to compose and share the following, rather cryptic, ALL CAPS Tweet: " YOUTUBE : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c47SAMqCalQ SOUNDCLOUD : ...

"There [aren't] too many Thanksgiving tracks in Hip-Hop . Here's one by Homeboy Sandman ," @stonesthrow Tweeted, along with a link to "Happy Thanksgiving," late Tuesday afternoon. Not entirely unlike Eugene McDaniels' own 1971 anti- Thanksgiving anthem, "The Parasite (for Buffy)," Homeboy Sandman 's latest tells the gritty truth behind Thanksgiving 's rather gruesome origins; "This cut is called "Happy Thanksgiving." It's the story of a Native American going out like a champ before being slaughtered by European settlers. It was produced by Psycho Les of The Beatnuts ," Sandman explains. "Happy Thanksgiving" sees a FREElease on the heels of Homeboy Sandman 's latest Stones Throw -backed project, HALLWAYS , produced by Jonwayne , Oh No, Knxwledge , DJ Spinna, Blu , and a multitude of inventive beat-makers. Homeboy Sandman 's latest festive-leaning release consists of roughly 57 bars-w...

"Tired of [people] making this an issue of anything but the music. While you were spending time looking pretty, I was working on my craft," self-proclaimed neck-beard rapper @jonwayne recently sounded off on Twitter ; "I can lose weight, cut my hair, trim my beard, get a tan.... none of that is going to make me a better emcee or producer. So, shut the f*ck up." Stones Throw sums up another recent Twitter -based turn of events pretty simply, "He made the announcement [Sunday] night, and here's the track. Simple as that. See you next week." Jonwayne effortlessly laces up 32 bars over an unspecified J Dilla beat, which he's re-dubbed "No" aka the first in a newly-announced Monday afternoon freestyles series. It was preceded last week by an unofficial starter track, "Special Herbs Medley," wherein Jonwayne rapped over 20 cut-and-pasted DOOM instrumentals in just under five minutes. While Dilla 's characteristically of...

Not even counting his seemingly endless pre- Stones Throw material, veteran emcee Homeboy Sandman has released one album, First of a Living Breed , and about four EP's with the documentary-wielding Indie Hip-Hop label since inking a deal in 2011; most recently having concocted a Jaylib -style collaborative EP with Stones Throw affiliated producer Paul White , ingeniously titled White Sands . According to Stones Throw , Homeboy Sandman 's latest track, "Atlantis" is "one of a few dozen new tracks Sand's been working on this year. Expect to hear the best of them in a new full length album set for Fall 2014 - title, producers and track list TBA." It's single cover is essentially laid out to mimic Nirvana 's iconic Nevermind album artwork and the track itself was produced by insanely prolific rising West Coast rapper-producer Blu . Comfortably nestled atop a jittery off-kilter beat, Homeboy Sandman ferociously raps, "I'd rather l...

18-year-old 90's Hip-Hop revivalist and head PRO ERA wordsmith Joey Bada$$ recently described his still brief discography in 140 characters or less , " 1999 was the debut. Summer Knights [EP] was the "holdmedown" people. But B4.DA.$$ [full-length] will be the break-through!!!!!" While Bada$$ previously laced up a few Dilla beats on 1999 , "Two Lips" marks his first Yancey family-approved, non- Pirate Bay 'd instrumentals, which he promises is only the first of his upcoming posthumous J Dilla "collaborations." The fruits of their labors, "Two Lips" 7-inch (with optional Dilla -themed T-shirts or sweatshirt) will become widely available through Akomplice , Maureen "Ma Dukes" Yancey 's newly-formed record label/streetwear company, at 12 noon on November 29th. It's pretty amazing that even though "Two Lips" was essentially harvested from a vault-full of unused beat CD-R's, it still sound...

Following the recent conclusion of his 3-part Cassette series, Jonwayne can now concentrate 100% of his focus on his long-awaited Stones Throw full-length; Formerly titled "Bohemian Rap CD," it's now called Rap Album 1 and cleverly sports a saltine cracker strewn across it's cover (likely a nod to how far "white boys" have come in Hip-Hop ha). While he was actually born Jon[athan] Wayne , the budding emcee kinda swagger-jacked the other, more infamous John Wayne 's birth-right for his latest mixtape, Marion Morrison (Cassette 3). "Reflection" is just one of 11 largely self-produced tracks culled from Rap Album 1 , which drops October 29th and is currently available for pre-order. Stones Throw liberated what Jonwayne later effectively dubbed a non-single mid-Wednesday afternoon; as Wayne perfectly put it, "If you don't like "Reflection," give yourself some time to adjust to new ideas in Hip-Hop and then listen a...

Noisey premiered Chuck Inglish 's new Federal Prism single, "Swervin'" late Tuesday afternoon, which features a semi-reunion with his former Cool Kids band mate Sir Michael Rocks (FKA Mikey Rocks ). Likely the first single from his upcoming Convertibles album, "Swervin'" marks The Cool Kids' first recorded appearance on wax since about 2011. Mikey Rocks randomly mentioned what sounds like a fairly amicable split win a Dec. 2012 AllHipHop interview: "You break us up, we're still going to turn out nice as f*ck separately, and when we come together, we transition that energy into making a dope record. Right now, man, I think we just need to be focusing on blowing up... We might come together as something else different. But as The Cool Kids , no, because we're not the same people, we've changed and evolved into two different artists." More or less, part 2 in Chuck Inglish 's auto-themed series that started with D...

Even since I've been into Stones Throw (Champion Sound-Donuts Era), the semi-respected Bay Area record label has slowly morphed into the place to go for cool, head-jerking vinyl. Peanut Butter Wolf has hand-picked a wide array of emcees, weirdo producers, Funk/Folk revivalists, solo artists, etc. Stones Throw 's genre-blending " Hip-Hop & more" roster presently includes: Madlib , James Pants, The Stepkids , Matthew Larkin Cassell , deceased mega-producer J Dilla , Steve Arrington, Quakers (Geoff Barrow) , Jonti, The Lions , Dâm-Funk, Jonwayne , and countless others. Announced just last Friday, 2 of the label's most note-worthy musicians have teamed up for a collaborative LP - Steve Arrington & Dâm-Funk ! Arrington, former Slave Funky drummer turned spiritual foot-soldier, has bonded with Dâm-Funk , who's quite arguably G-Funk 's last remaining post-90's producer. Steve Arrington self-released his first album in 20 years, Pure Thin...

"The recurring theme in this group is we are all NASTY producers who can rap, NASTILY. [It's] a completely self-sufficient, well-oiled machine," Jonwayne lamented about Digital Diamonds , via Twitter late Friday afternoon. He released a Nirvana -sampling track online a few months ago along with Scoop DeVille under the group name, which has now expanded to include Chuck Inglish . It's Inglish's first major project since The Cool Kids went on indefinite hiatus [broke up?] While Jonwayne on the other hand, is currently busy mixing/mastering his proper Stones Throw debut and Scoop DeVille has produced tracks for everyone from Snoop Dogg to Das Racist (R.I.P.) and Kendrick Lamar 's recent hit singles "The Recipe" and "Poetic Justice." "Delirious" is a CLASSIC hard-hitting Hip-Hop beat that sounds like it might've been collectively co-produced by Jonwayne, Chuck Inglish & Scoop DeVille . It seems to sample some...

Jonwayne must've tracked down a copy of that bare bones Nirvana - "In Bloom" (a capella) mp3 when it leaked way back in 2008. I'm pretty sure that Jonwayne chopped up and remixed Kurt Cobain 's POWERFUL, echoing vocals into a broading Boom-Bap track, which has now been cleverly re-titled "In Spite." Wayne quietly uploaded the track to Soundcloud just a few days ago under the musical moniker, "Digital Diamonds" and fellow rapper-producer Scoop DeVille is the other 1/2 of his new Rap Band . All of the new track's assorted, miscellaneous parts are essentially built and anchored together around Cobain's skeletal vocal performance. "In Spite" somehow manages to inter-weave Kurt's heart-felt wail right against Jonwayne/ Scoop DeVille 's rhymes, effortlessly blending in like a deep-rooted hook. I wonder what Digital Diamonds have in store for us next... a mixtape? Joint album? They've gotta be up to something, ...

I was pretty stoked to finally get a package from Stones Throw in my mailbox just the other day; It contained my Stones Throw "logo splatter" T-shirt and Jonwayne 's new CASSETTE project, which came along with a FREE Walkman since my order was one of the first 60 processed. In theory, it's actually a perfectly great/ludicrous idea... 100% leak-proof , but @ the same time, nearly 3/4's of the market probably has no means to play the tape. Jonwayne & Stones Throw have some serious balls for releasing an "album" that'll very likely never see a digital, CD, or vinyl re-issue package and it's 2012, baby! ha I've been playing CASSETTE while on-the-go over the weekend, took some notes, and here's a rough review of Side A (Raps) . Track #1 ("Gross") - chant-like vocal sample - Stones Throw shout-out(s) - eerily slowed down drums/keys - Pop Culture references - John Lennon, Flintstones - Hook: "Looking like a sperm eati...

Shit man, the name John Wayne is almost instantly BADASS ... Even when it's missing the all-important word-separating space and "h" for extra emphasis, of course. Depending on who you ask, I guess it could be said that Jonwayne is kinda a Hip-Hop Cowboy ; A rebel without a cause, and an un-worldly knack for producing a "darn tootin'" [perfect] beat! All the while, sharpening his Rap skills/chops, Jonwayne recently signed a deal with Stones Throw . Hard @ work compiling his debut LP for the Los Angeles -bred imprint, they've released a handful of FREE and re-packaged material over the past few months: Jonwayne F*cks Disney EP , Oodles of Doodles , This Is False (mixtape), a flexi-disc, and a $7.00 CASSETTE tape. "Night School" was quietly mastered and uploaded to Jonwayne 's personal Soundcloud page late July 30th, just a few days after Stones Throw outlined CASSETTE's rudimentary release. Wayne skillfully assembled a 5-man ...

" Jonwayne is an MC. He's on Stones Throw . He's making a Rap album for Stones Throw . He also makes beats. That's all we're saying for now. More later. OK?" ... Jonwayne 's new release is a Rap cassette. That is to say, a Hip-Hop album called Cassette , released only on cassette, playable only a cassette player. We're not posting the track list, and we're not releasing this on anything but a cassette. Side A is beats and raps by Jonwayne with Brainfeeder 's Jeremiah Jae . Side B is beats and no raps by Jonwayne . Total running time: 23:39. The MC/producer/ Low End Theory DJ offered no explanation as to why he wanted to release his album on cassette. Ask if he wished to expand on the idea he said, "not particularly." First 60 orders come with a new, fully-functioning portable cassette player with headphones, plus Jonwayne stickers. Check out a track called "Bukowski" from Side A , below. - Peanut Butter Wolf (...

Homeboy Sandman is far from your average gun-slinging, crack-dealing, bitch-slapping rapper. Granted he's no Will Smith either, but Sandman teeters the fine line between "parent approved" and parental advisory. His playful, blatantly honest couplets often remind me of one of my personal favourite rappers' schemes: Biz Markie . While he's amongst Stones Throw Records' freshest crop of signees, Homeboy Sandman has been self-releasing music for the bulk of the past 5-6 years (2007). Past cohorts [collaborators] include: Das Racist , 2 Hungry Bros, Paul White , Nottz, Kyle Rapps , and DJ Mick Boogie. Subject: Matter EP is being billed as "6 Rap songs dealing with content no one has ever rapped about before," which ultimately showcase Homeboy Sandman 's intelligently-woven wordplay and keen sense of storytelling. "Mine All Mine" is the second music video culled from Subject: Matter , released in just as many weeks. Filmed through...