Record Store Day Black Friday: DJ Nu-Mark's "Zodiac Killah" 7-inch Feat. Method Man, Dan Ubick & Money Mark (Hot Plate/Fat Beats Records)
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, released in 2006. However, after a few years apart, Akil, Chali 2na, Cut Chemist, DJ Nu-Mark, Marc 7, and Soup AKA Zaakir, decided to reunite in 2013 for a round of shows across the globe and have since unleashed a number of new singles.
Earlier this year, Cut Chemist let loose his long-awaited sophomore album, DIE CUT, Soup has re-emerged as Fullee Love with an album entitled FREE, WHITE & 21 produced by Nicholas Eaholtz AKA Nick Green of The Internet, and Chali 2na released his 10-track Instrumentality EP. DJ Nu-Mark scored a big gig as the in-house DJ for Jensen "Hot Karl" Karp & Ben Winston's The Late Late Show with James Corden spin-off, Drop The Mic. It's hosted by Wu-Tang swordsmen Method Man and Stephen Baldwin's daughter, Hailey Baldwin. DJ Nu-Mark & The Katz provide cuts between celebrity battle raps, throw to commercial breaks with his top-notch DJ skills, and created a fresh "Drop The Mic Theme Song." For the past few years, DJ Nu-Mark has been painstakingly creating and released monthly zodiac-based Zodiac Tracks, which he mixes together directly from vinyl and uploads to his Facebook page. "It was a trip to get a cold call from James Corden's office to DJ Drop The Mic with Method Man as the host. My Zodiac Tracks vinyl mixes were a big factor in [the] producers picking me for the show," DJ Nu-Mark told HIPHOPDX during a 2017 interview.
"They were familiar with my production and knew I'd be able to create the theme song. Anyone who really knows me understands how much I like comedy, so it was an easy "yes" for me," Nu-Mark continued. Now, for Record Store Day Black Friday, DJ Nu-Mark has returned with his first taste of new music since ZODIAC TRACKS Season 2; for "Zodiac Killah," Uncle Nu recruited his Drop The Mic co-star, Method Man, as well as Dan Ubick & Money Mark. Meth, of course, provides sharp-tongued rhymes, as always, somehow, touching on all 12 zodiac/astrological signs in just under 2 minutes! Dan Ubick of Breakestra, Connie Price & The Keystones, and The Lions fame provides bass, guitar, and background keys; while Money Mark—whom you might know from his work with Beastie Boys, The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs or Handsome Boy Modelling School—provides his trademark Funky fresh keys throughout "Zodiac Killah." DJ Nu-Mark & Method Man's "Zodiac Killah" is now