The Witzard Premier: Zilla Rocca's Latest Disco Vietnam-produced Stand-alone Single "99 Triple 5 Soul Flow" (Three Dollar Pistol Music)
South Philly rapper-producer and one half of Career Crooks, Zilla Rocca has returned with his first proper solo release of 2018, "99 Triple 5 Soul Flow." Zilla is not only, part of Career Crooks with producer buddy Small Professor, but also, runs with his own crews, The Shadowboxers—formerly, The 5 O'Clock Shadow Boxers—and Wrecking Crew with fellow emcees Curly Castro & PremRock, along with Small Pro. Zilla Rocca additionally, runs his own Philly-based label, Three Dollar Pistol Music, is co-creator of @rapbooklets' Instagram, and fancies himself a "Noir-Hop originator and corrupt novelist." "99 Triple 5 Soul Flow" is of course, a reference to infamous 1990's Hip-Hop clothing brand Triple 5 Soul and is the sequel to last year's similarly-minded "98 Avirex Flow;" a stand-alone single with sonic ties to Zilla Rocca's upcoming '96 Mentality, which was produced by Disco Vietnam AKA @SupernovaLox. Now, this is where it gets a little hairy, Disco Vietnam was and still is a Rock "N" Roll band with a rotating cast of characters, which currently includes: Barry Schwartz, his brother Kenny Schwartz, and keyboardist Nicki Kunzinger.
Disco Vietnam (the band) is currently on a bit of a hiatus, but Barry Schwartz still records and releases Hip-Hop music and beats as "Disco Vietnam"—also, his recent beat-making alias. "99 Triple 5 Soul Flow" is made up of "an old beat Zilla dusted off," as Schwartz put it. When asked for comment on "99 Triple 5 Soul Flow," Zilla Rocca, or their future work together, Barry Schwartz said: "me and Zilla Rocca dug coal together." Between 2007-12, Disco Vietnam released three Bandcamp EP's: Get at Me Corruption, TOTALLY AWESOME DECISIONS, and wonderfully-titled Fear of Lava. Disco Vietnam's 2007 smash single, "The NP (Natalie Portman)" was even featured on HOT 97's Rosenberg Radio. However, if you're more into the beat-making side of things, Disco Vietnam also, has a Soundcloud page chock-full of beats, rough sketches, demos, features with rappers, Disco Vietnam (band) songs, and much, much more with material dating as far back as 2011. Zilla Rocca is currently wrapping up a number of projects to be released throughout 2018, including, but not limited to, Career Crooks' Thieving As Long As I'm Breathing remix EP, '96 Mentality, and his long-awaited solo album, Future Former Rapper. I'll just let Zilla Rocca take it from here...
"I have a few releases dropping this year with Career Crooks being a remix project, Thieving As Long As I'm Breathing and then, my official solo LP, Future Former Rapper, probably in the summertime. '96 Mentality is a project I just did really quick—it's where my head is right now. Most of the songs are two minutes or shorter and it's a bunch of producers on there that I'm very cool with that are incredibly dope: Disco Vietnam, Ray West [Red Apples 45], The Expert, DJ Manipulator, Dr. Quandary, and more. It's just a banging Rap project that made me think about how much I loved Rap in 1996 and how that year inspired me to take Rap seriously. So, here I am 22 years later, putting out my own music based off that year!"
- @ZillaRocca (The Grey Ghost)