While it’s almost time to finally ditch the cold weather gear in Milwaukee (we think,) the B&E Weekly Jams presented by Bublr Bikes is already heating up with new music from all over the city. This week, we’ve got a little bit of everything, including tracks from Dubb Saq, Trapper Schoepp, In Cursive and many more! Don’t forget that you can check out more playlists by following Breaking And Entering on Spotify, get exclusive content on our Patreon, and check out this week’s playlist below:
Tag: Verge
AUDIO: Z4 – “Zone 4”
Hip hop artist Z4 dropped a new album recently. Consisting of sixteen tracks, the record gives the rapper plenty of room to express himself with joy, gratitude and ambition. Z4 has tons of fun at the mic from song to song; you can tell from his positive and playful demeanor that he’s genuinely excited to be making music while recognizing that the best is yet to come. The first five tracks are just him, but the sixth track and beyond feature the likes of Verge, 420LonelyP, Ivory King, Esco Blackheart, Ja Dubb and FlowDownBeats for a heaping helping of flexes and matched wavelengths. Z4 steps into his confidence and goes for the gold while reflecting on growth and prosperity with “Zone 4.”
AUDIO: 39tharchitect – “Zoo Tales, Pt. 1”
After months of perfecting things, producer 39tharchitect has his debut project out via Phat Nerd Records. “Zoo Tales Pt. 1” isn’t his first time on the microphone publicly, but effectively serves as a welcoming party for another member of the Phat Nerdz collective. Plenty of lo-fi beats serve as the palette for 39tharchitect to rap on with a bar-heavy flow, complete with a brash, aggressive approach to rhyming. Features from NilexNile and Verge are there, as expected, but this project is really about 39tharchitect coming into his own as a rapper in addition to his work behind the boards. Nod along with “Zoo Tales, Pt. 1” here:
MID COAST UNPLUGGED VOL. 2; ARTIST SPOTLIGHTS: Wisdm Giovanni, Breonte, Phat Nerdz
Mid Coast hosted their Unplugged Vol. 2 show at Cactus Club on Friday evening featuring performances from Wisdm Giovanni, Breonte, Quellez and Phat Nerdz as well as DJ sets from DJ Quilla and Clyde Jennings. They raised donations for Milwaukee Autonomous Tenants Union, who have been fighting the eviction crisis in town since the pandemic hit. We got to speak to Wisdm Giovanni, Breonte and Phat Nerdz after the show and see what they’re up to.
Wisdm Giovanni is a producer whose music encompasses elements of hip hop, R&B, soul and jazz. He’s got a prolific output and makes music every day; so far in 2022 he’s dropped four albums and two EPs in addition to numerous singles. His name’s inspired by an artist known as Knxwledge that he got into, in addition to his appreciation for neo-soul and smooth jazz.
He shared a bit with us about how he started making music. “I’ve been producing since around the end of 2018-beginning of 2019, but I started in high school just grabbing YouTube-type beats and trying to rap, but that obviously wasn’t going anywhere so I tried something else. I saw some of my favorite artists like Kanye were doing their own production, and that kind of inspired me.”
His most recent EP “The Love Arrangements” dropped a couple weeks ago. “That was five tracks that weren’t throwaways that I still really liked but didn’t make it onto a twelve-song album, and I wanted them to still get heard,” Giovanni said.
One of his most recent singles is “Orange Crush” in collaboration with Zolton, Neely, and ThatGuyEli. Giovanni said, “That was really fun because with that many egos in one room, it was really easy to create.”
In fact, he released a new tape this week as well simply titled “Giovanni.” Stay tuned for more to come from Wisdm Giovanni very soon.
Breonte is a hip hop artist known for his iconoclastic persona. He also has enjoyed a consistent output with numerous singles and an EP last year, plus an EP, two-pack and a couple singles so far this year. Some of his biggest influences are Kyle, Childish Gambino, and Spooky Black/Corbin.
“I’ve been making music since like 2017,” he explained. “It was junior year in college and was just posting on Soundcloud using a headphones mic. YouTube taught me more than college (laughs). I gradually learned how to get better at making music because it was something I had a passion in, and then 2021 is the year I started taking it seriously and I dropped every month on all platforms. I’ve since hit 100 Spotify followers, which isn’t the biggest thing ever but was a small goal for myself.”
His recent EP “This Phase Won’t Pass” dropped in April and incorporates some jazz and rock sensibilities. “It was two songs that I released on Soundcloud just as throwaways, but my friends were really pressuring me to drop them on all platforms so I put them together as a random assortment of songs that were mostly aggressive. I thought it was a cool EP of different stuff from what I usually make, like not emotional songs and just talking shit for no reason. It’s surprisingly doing better than I thought it would.”
Breonte plans to drop more music this month and then an album before the end of the year.
Phat Nerdz are a hip hop collective comprised of NilexNile, Myndd, 39tharchitect, and Verge. Some members have come and gone but this is their current form; Arc joined around 2017-2018, for example.
They felt really good about the energy tonight. “If you weren’t here, you should’ve fucking been here,” Arc laughed. “Get to the next one.”
Their most recent EP “Not A Crowd in the Sky” dropped in 2020 but featured just Nile and Verge. “COVID was going on and I was working third shift,” Verge explained, “but Nile would be up at night so we’d just be working on music and making something new every day. That’s how “Not A Crowd in the Sky” happened.”
“We’ve got like three bodies worth of Phat Nerdz tapes in the works,” Nile said. “You can definitely expect two of them before the year’s over, and then next year we’ll even drop a third so people will know we’ll always be continuing to keep the music consistent. When we write we all bring our laptops and just start rapping and freestyling, smoking and playing video games. We’re just trying to keep that comradery and staying focused because at the end of the day, we’re all we got.”
Phat Nerdz are throwing their fourth Phat Nerdz Fest this year, plus they’re working on coordinating a show with Four Seasons Skatepark.
