Well it’s 10:30am in Denver, and already today the New York Mets signed Tim Tebow and Zack de la Rocha released his debut solo single. Maybe I should just go back to bed?
As his Rage Against the Machine brethren partnered with Chuck D and B-Real to form Prophets of Rage, de la Rocha apparently made good on his long-promised solo album.
The first single called “Digging For Windows”, produced by Run the Jewels’ El-P. De La Rocha in in absolutely fearsome brick-thrower mode on the track, which just went out into the world as a free BitTorrent download.
https://twitter.com/therealelp/status/773885755210862595?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/therealelp/status/773886483673395200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/therealelp/status/773887290116411392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Rumors and reports about a Zack de la Rocha solo record have swirled for almost two decades. Questlove, DJ Shadow, and Trent Reznor have all talked about sessions with the Rage frontman. In 2003, de la Rocha’s DJ Shadow collaboration “March of Death” was released and an album was promised to come out that year. Obviously, that didn’t happen, and multiple interviews with de la Rocha and his collaborators pointed to the album’s sessions being shelved entirely. Reznor said in 2011:
We did some stuff that I thought was pretty cool, and it was frustrating because I also knew it would never see the light of day. It would get to the point where—Zack, I’m saying this with love—but it was the riddle of “I can’t do this, it sounds too much like Rage.” “OK, let’s do that.” “I can’t do that, it doesn’t sound enough like what you’d expect me to do.” There’s a few good tracks laying around, but it’s up to him. I doubt that’s going to see the light of day.
Then, earlier this year, El-P posted a photo of de la Rocha in the studio with Run the Jewels and Nas. In an interview about Prophets, de la Rocha’s Rage bandmate Brad Wilk revealed that Zack was “making a record right now.”
