The Witzard

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. "I've been a fan of DOOM's music since his first release, Operation: Doomsday. Incredible beats, rhymes that had their own flow and imagination to them, and the ability to craft it all together with a theme to create a stand-alone piece of classic Hip-Hop was remarkable. He went on to do that with, basically, every project; his albums aren'...

"The band we know as Phony Ppl is a mix of people, time, and sound that's been nurtured over generations in Brooklyn " currently consisting of members: Elbee Thrie on vocals, Elijah Rawk on lead guitar, Matt "Maffyuu" Byas on drums, Aja Grant on keyboards, and Bari Bass on, of course, bass guitar. Since forming in 2009—amidst self-releasing 3 albums and an EP on Phony PPL LLC — Phony Ppl have had the unique opportunity to perform alongside Domo Genesis , Erykah Badu, Fetty Wap , Kali Uchis, Mac Miller , Odd Future, Princess Nokia , The Roots, Snake Hips , and more. Now, following a brief hiatus, Phony Ppl have returned with their first new material since Yesterday's Tomorrow (2015.) Last week, okayplayer premiered "Before You Get a Boyfriend," which effortlessly blends together Soul , Funk, Hip-Hop , and R&B-leaning sounds into a "noGENRE" musical mix the site deems "an ice-cold summer daydream." Phony Ppl '...

Shamgod by UllNevaNo x Manhe Fresh on the heels of his marathon 4-Hour Tour this past Saturday, May 5, 2018 with The Ghost of Len Bias EP collaborator John "Jumbled" Bachman , Baltimore emcee UllNevaNo has returned with his latest slam-dunk of a release, SHAMMGOD ; a 9-track EP consisting of tracks first released during UllNevaNo & MANHE 's weekly #SHAMMGODWEDS Soundcloud series. Now, properly re-collected as simply SHAMMGOD on a special lathe-cut 7-inch and limited edition cassette tape released by MGNTK. and Illinois -based In The Lake Records (ITL Records) with a bonus MANHE instrumental entitled "Coupleofem." SHAMMGOD EP is of course, named after notorious Washington Wizards player and Dallas Mavericks assistant coach God Shammgod FKA Shammgod Wells , but this is far from UllNevaNo 's first basketball-themed release. Lest we forget, Neva 's illien rosewell -produced Confidence Is Everything II (CIE2) released during the 2015-16 S...

" no suits started in kindergarten, when Max Pierro and Sajan Sanghvi met on the first day of class. Pierro told Sanghvi shortly into their friendship "when we grow up, we gotta be entrepreneurs and never wear a suit to work." That single statement grew into a philosophy and continued to spread to this day and hence, became the label of their music group they began in 2014. Pierro & Sanghvi forged ahead to release their first single, a remix of ODESZA 's "Say My Name." Shortly after, they recruited drummer/bassist Ed Hill , who was taking college classes with Pierro and had a similar passion for early Hip-Hop and shared the no suits ' philosophy. The trio went on to release a slew of hit singles, namely "Strawberry Wine" ft. Aubren Elaine & Matt Capone , "Escape Reality" ft. Aubren Elaine, and a remix of Major Lazer 's "Be Together" ft. Wild Belle . Proceeding to execute their vision to push the bound...

"After /r/jimmyjrg created those stems of MF DOOM, I knew I had to follow up SADEVILLAIN with a [sequel] and this is exactly what I've done. I've had nothing but free time on my hands and went right to work on this project. The amount of recognition of the first tape got was insane, it was incredibly overwhelming and I still thank everyone who has listened to it," Seanh AKA clerksfanboy AKA Snh AKA @TheSeanh2k11 recently wrote within an /r/MFDOOM Subreddit titled I Present to You... SADEVILLAIN II. I've spoken with Seanh a few times over the course of the past year since the release of SADEVILLAIN (2016) and last I knew, he was busy crafting some original beats for an Aesop Rock remix project, which became his recent Aesop Rock vs. Seanh EP. It appears as though Seanh quietly uploaded SADEVILLAIN's proper sequel, fittingly titled SADEVILLAIN II, Monday afternoon and seemingly wasn't picked up by an media outlets until @okayplayer Tweeted out: "Ol...

"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...

"When I first read this phrase at 16, it blew my mind: "all songs written, performed, produced, and arranged by D'Angelo ." After that point, I knew [that was] exactly what I wanted to do for my debut: write, produce, and play all the instruments on my project (I recently learned, it was Prince who inspired D'Angelo to do this). To express myself to the full capacity of my abilities and strive to take a similar challenging, but rewarding, journey as one of my idols to create the debut that I truly wanted," singer, song-writer, producer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist Chris McClenney wrote within A Written Note On Portrait In Two . McClenney's self-released Portrait In Two EP , which was just released this past Friday, January 13th and followed by a Saturday Blue Not Jazz Club release show, was preceded by critically-acclaimed singles "Headlines," "Otherside," and "What You Mean to Me." McClenney has previously ...

"Leading with dream-like panpipes floating over TEACHERS' signature Tribal percussion; "Mannequin In Heat" is a breezy cut that will transport the listener to warmer climates. Speaking on the track, experimental and innovative lead singer Ben Bronfman says: "This is one of those tunes that wrote itself, sometimes you struggle to find the right melody, sometimes it just comes through you and all you have to do is get out of the way. "Mannequin In Heat" is one of those tunes, just step aside and let it be. We got some Caribbean vibes mixed with Afro-polyrhythmic Pop that stays true to our leftist/Punky swagger! We do it for the love!" - TEACHERS Frontman Ben Bronfman "' [Ben] Bronfman first collaborated with [Kanye] West in 2010, when he flew out to Hawaii to work on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy . (You can hear a mangled sample of his voice weaving in and out of the mix on "MONSTER," plus a keyboard melody he contrib...

stop. waiting. by Donwill "Hailing from both Brooklyn and Cincinnati , Tanya Morgan formed on the message boards of okayplayer.com in 2003 when Donwill, Ilyas Nashid , and Von Pea were all solo artists trading demos and beat tapes. The three emcees decided to collaborate for a one-off project and settled on the name Tanya Morgan —an inside joke to trick Hip-Hop crate-diggers and sample-searchers into thinking the record was an old-school Soul singer..." reads a clever emailed press release from HiPNOTT Records ; while Donwill 's Soundcloud description simply reads, " Donwill makes music and you can hear it here." Donwill quietly released a compact 12-minute EP, stop. waiting. under the cover of night late Sunday evening, which he described within an emailed statement as: "basically [though,] it's an EP that I made for myself and mostly by myself to help me get out of my own way. The images in the PDF booklet are a metaphor for me balancing ...

Los Angeles by way of Philly Hip-Hop group NAC (formerly The NAC ) have previously written, produced, and recorded music alongside the likes of The Roots , RJD2, John Legend & Ludacis , Ciara, Miguel , TLC, The Money-Makin' Jam Boys , and Ne-Yo; NAC "is musically, somewhere [in] between Hip-Hop , Electronic Soul, and good time Southern Crunk " and consists of Roots -affiliated emcee Sugar Tongue Slim (STS) and producers-musicians Butta , Bizkit , and DJ Schoolie V . NAC 's self-released 7-track debut EP, Let's Make Some Music , was unleashed upon the unsuspecting world this past Friday, August 5th and was preceded by dance floor-ready singles "I Ain't Got It," "On The Floor," and Mass Appeal -premiered "Flashlight." When asked, what's your main mission aimed at newfound fans with your Let's Make Some Music EP ? NAC members Bizkit , STS , and Butta respectively replied: " NAC is here to bring the fun an...

Whole Food by Gensu Dean & Denmark Vessey "This full-length collaboration between Gensu Dean and Denmark Vessey comes packed with all the vitamins and nutrients you could possibly need without any of the frivolous packaging. The pair's debut as a duo on Mello Music Group imagines mugshot spreads in Newsweek and blood dripping down starched white aprons, and there are no $6 cappuccinos in sight," reads an incredibly well-written fragmented chunk of Dean and Vessey's forthcoming Whole Food Bandcamp press release. It appears as though While Food (which will be unleashed upon the unsuspecting world July 29th) will be a class rapper-producer Jaylib -style affair; "on Whole Food , [Denmark Vessey] expands his purview to encompass the whole human body, from the biscuits and gravy weighing down your stomach to bullet wounds in your abdomen. And he does it all with empathy, wit, and supreme technical skill," Mello Music Group ferociously continued. On...

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...

Let me just preface this week's slightly abridged edition of The Witzard's Week In Rap by first explaining that while I could be covering Kanye 's "newly updated, remixed, and remastered version" of haphazardly-assembled steaming pile of s*it The Life of Pablo , I'm not even going to be giving his second of what could likely end up being umpteenth mixes, recently dubbed a "continuous process" by Def Jam , the sheer satisfaction of even buying into and covering it; however, with that said, his Sampha -assisted "Saint Pablo" (formerly titled "Closest Thing to Einstein" ) from his second of three rumored in-the-works albums, Turbo Grafx 16 , is likely as strong, lyrically verbose, and dare I say, self-reflective as Kanye 's sounded since Jay Z -helmed Watch The Throne or even 808's & Heartbreak . For what it's worth, a couple contenders for "honorable mentions" released sporadically throughout the week s...

I'm almost positive that I myself, like many unknowing listeners, first heard the ferocious rhyming talents of Sugar Tongue Slim (STS) on The Roots' "Auto-Tune Baby"-borrowing How I Got Over (2010) bonus track, "Hustla;" an intriguing concoction produce by ?uestlove & Diplo, which was formerly inter-woven amidst an early M.I.A. & Prince Zimboo-assisted Major Lazer composition befittingly titled "Baby" (Switch Remix) . STS would self-release three volumes of his critically-acclaimed GOLD Rush freestyles series and later go on to join Black Thought-fronted Money Makin' Jam Boys alongside fellow Roots affiliates Dice Raw, Truck North, and Greg Porn. It would appear as though MMJB's post-Prestige indefinite hiatus has seemingly inspired STS to go ahead and form his own genre-blending Roots-esque Hip-Hop band, NAC; "Cultivated in Philly and created in LA, NAC is a unique band that have written music for artist such as John Legend,...

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 ...

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...

" The Gaslamp Killer is the assassin and the antidote. His nickname wasn't conceived out of thin air. William Bensussen is entitlement's worst nightmare. His DJ sets bludgeon the basic sh*t, restoring music to a sacred place: shamanistic, visceral, honest, leaving pupils dilated and heads rolling," reads a rather interesting Impressum (or description section) attached to Alternative Hip-Hop DJ-producer Gaslamp Killer 's Facebook profile. While it doesn't seem to appear within Bensussen's recently-released The Gaslamp Killer Experience: Live in Los Angeles , his latest video-single "Ritual" seems to have been filmed at the same November 2013 Mayan Theatre concert that yielded the album's highly complex, nearly orchestral sessions; recorded in collaboration with a 15-piece band featuring revered saxophonist Kamasi Washington , Jogger guitarist Amir Yaghma , LA -based drummer Gene Coye , and trumpet player Todd Simon . "As you watc...

"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...

" Black Atlass is quite literally the only artist on earth to soundtrack Louis Vuitton and Yves Saint Laurent ads while featuring on Action Bronson songs," reads part of a recently published Fool's Gold Records press release. "This diverse appeal is a testament to the captivating voice of Alex Fleming , the young singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who created Black Atlass as a vehicle for his unique vocals, heart-on-sleeve lyrics, and experimental production techniques," it descriptively continues. Fleming is of course, the deeply soulful voice crooning "I nearly lost my mind. All a motherf**ker got is time, time... I nearly lost my brain dealin' with this motherf**kin' pain, so bad" on Action Bronson 's infectious Party Supplies -produced MR. WONDERFUL stand-out, "A Light In The Addict." Alex Fleming previously unleashed his critically-acclaimed debut, Young Bloods EP and a beautiful, free 10-track album t...

It seemed lie a pretty blatant, clear-cut call to arms to me when Brooklyn rapper-turned-actor-turned-stand-up comic Yasiin Bey aka Mos Def suddenly challenged any brave three-man posse up for the challenge to a battle rap-style cypher between himself, King Los , and Roots emcee Black Thought this past weekend; "me, Black Thought , and King Los vs. anybody e'erybody... battle anybody. [...] I'm tired of these dudes pretendin' like they dope. You alright, but relax. The dope n***as that think they dope — you ain't as dope as you think. You cool, but you ain't that deal. And we don't have to make no back-and-forth corny records about it." Although, for reasons unknown, Bey has since reneged his previously-incited battle rap challenge, which happened to fit right in, in light of Drake & Meek Mill 's recent well-publicized beef. He's more of less accusing YouTube user and apparent affiliate rrvid718 of uploading said call to arms vi...