The Witzard

DJ Nu-Mark is, likely, best know as being one of the in-house DJ's for critically-acclaimed/widely loved Los Angeles-based Hip-Hop crew Jurassic 5; although, Mark Potsic (affectionately known as "Uncle Nu") is also, a talented producer, turntablist, drummer, multi-instrumentalist, and film composer, in his own right. In addition to Jurassic 5, Nu-Mark has spent time playing with groups 4 Player Co-Op, Blendcrafters with Pomo, TRDMRK with The Pharcyde founding member Slimkid3 & Austin Antoine, Rebels of Rhythm, and Afrika Bambaataa-helmed Zulu Nation. DJ Nu-Mark has either composed music for—both solo and with Jurassic 5—or appeared within a multitude of feature films and documentaries including Coachella: The Movie, Keepintime: A Live Recording, MacGruber, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Ride Along 1 & 2 starring Ice Cube & Kevin Hart, Rock The Bells: The Documentary, and the upcoming Shaft 2019 sequel/re-boot co-starring Samuel L. Jackson & Jessie T....

Ozomatli are a Los Angeles -based 6-piece " Latin/Funk/Hip-Hop and everything in-between" band, who are currently celebrating their 22nd year creating genre-eschewing music together. Ozomatli's current line-up consists of Wil-Dog Abers on bass guitar/background vocals, Ulises Bella on saxophone, clarinet, Requinto Jarocho, keyboard, melodica & background vocals, Raúl "El Bully" Pacheco on guitar, tres, Jarana & lead vocals, Justin "El Niño" Porée on percussion/Rap vocals, Asdru Sierra on trumpet, keyboard & lead vocals, and Jiro Yamaguchi on drums, tabla, percussion & background vocals. Although, at one point in time, Ozomalti 's line-up famously included Chali 2na & Cut Chemist , who would later, go on to form one of my personal favorite Hip-Hop crews, Jurassic 5 , together; both Chali 2na & Cut Chemist appeared throughout Ozomatli 's 1998 self-titled debut and would later appear separately on Embrace The C...

First and foremost, Happy Thanksgiving Day Weekend/Black Friday to all of our trusty readers out there and Happy Record Store Day Black Friday to my fellow crate diggers! Full disclosure: I'm pretty sure one of the first CD's I ever bought for my Walkman was Will Smith 's 1997 solo debut, Big Willie Style . Regardless, it was definitely one of my earliest brushes with Hip-Hop/Rap , which ultimately, changed my life! A few of my earliest favorite Hip-Hop albums I discovered on my own were Atmosphere 's Seven's Travels , Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill & Paul's Boutique, Wu-Tang Clan 's Enter: The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers,) and Jurassic 5's Power In Numbers. The latter has always had a special place in my Hip-Hop -loving heart and I would soon, go on to discover DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist 's heavily-bootlegged BRAINFREEZE , Chali 2na & Roc 'C's Ron Artiste' super-group, and Jurassic 5 's "last" album, Feedback , r...

"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....

"I went to an event called Baltimore Beat Club that I played beats at and had an open mic cypher. I don't think Izaac lived in the city, but came to this Beat Club and to the next one—that I couldn't make. He produced his own stuff on GarageBand, but I sent him some beats that he liked. [He] sent me this one and I tweaked it a little. But since then, he's deleted his Soundcloud, Facebook, and Twitter. ACTUALLY, I tried to look him up again and he changed his Rap name to Mick Boche and relocated to San Diego," Baltimore rapper-producer Jumbled, who moonlights as high school engineering teacher Mr. John Bachman , revealed during our featured interview a few months ago. Since conducting that fateful Jumbled interview, I've successfully gotten in touch with the man, the myth, the legend, Mick Boche (formerly known as Izaac) and fellow Baltimore multi-instrumentalist and Folk-Pop artist, Jordan Parrish (Birds With Teeth). Boche relocated to San Diego, California d...

"The Audience's Following is a 10-year anniversary fan club edition version of The Audience's Listening. I like to call this the bizzaro version follow-up to [The Audience's Listening], as it features songs that never made the cut and demo versions of songs that did. There are also B-sides from vinyl singles, plus a special mix of the original song sampled for "What's The Altitude" by Curtis Knight[-Zeus] . Have fun listening to the album that was almost released 10 years ago. It's the follow-up and the audience is still following and listening and... whatever else," world-renowned DJ Lucas "Cut Chemist" Macfadden wrote within a short 7/11 Bandcamp description attached to The Audience's Following. Now, I don't mean to get all fanboy here, but I've been actively wishing and working on scoring an interview with Cut Chemist for about 3-5 years now; I can remember purchasing Jurassic 5, Cut's on-again off-again and recently...

" Sound Me fully embodies the ambiance and a sense of dualism captured between a dark past giving way to a brighter future. Inspired by the struggle of living day-to-day in working class Poland , Aani spins her lyricism into an art that paints a picture of love lost searching for a genuine connection, in a world that seems to have long forgotten the almost reminiscent old school values embedded in the unique style delivered by Sound Me ," WeGrowWax wrote within a self-contained press release shared on Polish Trip-Hoppers Sound Me 's mysteriously sparse Bandcamp page. Upon a first listen to Sound Me 's snippet-laced "Growing" (Album Promo Mix) , my well-trained ear immediately sensed notes of Amy Winehouse backed by Jurassic 5 in-house DJ's Cut Chemist and DJ Nu-Mark , as well as skilled songstresses Joss Stone , Macy Grey, and jj frontwoman Elin Kastlander —all of course, backed by Mayer Hawthorne -esque trumpet work. "[ Sound Me is] a ...

"With all due respect to Babe Ruth, Pelé, and Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali was the greatest athlete of the twentieth century. The Champ passed away late Friday night in Arizona at the age of seventy-four due to respiratory complications. Esquire has a trove of memorable Ali pieces—he was manna from heaven for writers—beginning with Tom Wolfe's 1963 Esquire debut, "The Marvelous Mouth," published when the fighter still went by the name Cassius Clay. At 21 he was already fully aware of himself as a show-business creation, and Wolfe predicted a fascinating career for him in "boxing or show business or folk symbolism or whatever it is that he now is really involved in,'" Esquire Classic writer and curator Alex Belth wrote within a touching June 4th Muhammad Ali piece published following the three-time World Heavyweight champ's untimely death. Belth's Muhammad Ali: The Greatest of Them All was accompanied by a similarly-titled, Funk-laden "Tr...

Let's face it, nearly any avid supporter of either basketball or Hip-Hop can likely attest to the beloved genre and stadium-filling sport's frequent cross-sectional analogies and often unexpected collaborations; be it Skee-Lo 's 1995 Buffalo Springfield -interpolating "I Wish," Action Bronson 's sprawling genre-defying Blue Chips series, Jurassic 5 's trunk-rattling "What's Golden," or somewhat less favorable Michael Jordan & Bugs Bunny -helmed Space Jam soundtrack, Shaq 's head-scratching Kazaam soundtrack, or Kobe Bryant 's short-lived rap "career." Hip-Hop 's latest rhyme-laden page added to the NBA 's ever-growing playbook is brought to you by none other than Philly 's finest Legendary Hard-working Roots Crew and Jimmy Fallon 's long-time Tonight Show Band . The Roots seemingly penned "Champion" specifically for inclusion as the official 2016 NBA Finals Theme Song and in retrospe...

Aside from the Beastie Boys of course, I think it's pretty safe to say that Jurassic 5 were my first favourite Hip-Hop group that I discovered entirely on my own; if I'm not mistaken, "What's Golden" was featured on some sort of early 2000's basketball game for either N64 or PlayStation . Power In Numbers (2002) still remains in heavy rotation in my car stereo and is without a doubt one of my all-time favourite Hip-Hop albums. I remember having a burned CD-R copy of the album released either directly before of after Power In Numbers , which was always an enjoyable listen, too. After releasing four positive "Conscious Hip-Hop" albums and one EP between 1993-2007, Jurassic 5 decided to part ways and unveiled one final album recorded without previously departed DJ Cut Chemist , Feedback . Following the under-the-radar release(s) and luke warm commercial reception of a few side projects, including Ron Artiste and a compilation of 1980's ...

Former Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page Tweeted "on this day, Biggie Smalls " along with a web-link Friday morning; He's pieced together what kinda sounds like a semi-unfinished mash-up between "Hypnotize" and "Ramble On" that's been dubbed "Ramblize." 90's Hip-Hop heads might recall that this isn't exactly Page's first forre into Hip-Hop , as he previously re-recorded parts of "Kashmir" for Godzilla break-out hit, "Come with Me" with none other than Puff Daddy [included below]. "Ramblize" somehow teeters that fine line, where if it sucked (which it doesn't), it'd still be pretty cool simply because of the sheer fact that Jimmy Page remixed a Biggie track! From what I understand, Page recently uploaded a similar Snoop Dogg/Led Zeppelin mash-up of "Drop It Like It's Hot" (credited to Led Dogg ). Lest we forget, Led Zepplin 's now-deceased mondo-drummer Joh...

Brainfreeze 45 extraordinaire and Jurassic 5 DJ Cut Chemist was temporarily locked up for unspecified reasons in recent years, but now he's back with a long-awaited new [compilation] album, Funk Off ; partially previewed during "an excellent mix for the Stones Throw Podcast called Cassette Culture using four cassette decks and tracks from a release he was working on called Funk Off ," it's a quasi-collaboration with 1980's French New-Wave groups Vox Populi! & Pacific 231 . Cut Chemist unleashed two non-album singles leading up to Funk Off 's October 29th release, "Outro (Revisited)" and "Work My Mind." The latter is essentially a re-imagining/remix of [Vox Populi!] album track "Alternative Fresh," which features select verses by Jurassic 5 frontman Chali 2na and Hymnal . "Work My Mind" is more or less a self-described "future-primitive analogue thriller," complete with a music video directed ...

Gotta admit, I'm pretty STOKED on the [possible] idea of hearing more music from these 2 newly-formed Hip-Hop groups: Miguel Street and Ron Artiste . Almost simultaneously announced on this fairly quiet Monday afternoon, Miguel Street consists of Heems and Big Baby Gandhi , who's debut track features them rapping over a re-tweaked version of "Call Me Maybe." Ron Artiste on the other hand, is the latest nom de plume of former Jurassic 5 leader, Chali 2na and veteran emcee Roc "C" ... either paying homage/goofing on the infamous basketball player who now goes by Metta World Peace . I'm not really sure which one it is just yet, but I think they're LEGIT tried and true ballers! Much like Heems & Mike Finito 's "Teenage Dream" (Katy Perry) remix from last year, "Call Me Maybe" has that same sort of "so, are they like kidding or are they serious" type of vibe going on. Hot 97 , the also SUPER-FRESH dual pro...