As Wu-International comes to the end of the West Coast Killa Beez series, we have covered interviews from The Black Knights, and the West Coast Killa Bee Gang to Northstar and Christ Bearer’s Yellow Jackets, done a week dedication to Doc Doom and caught up with the Soul sensation Stone Mecca . The aim was to catch up with the chambers of Wu in the West Coast, to pay homage to the founding fathers of this movement (Black Knights and Northstar) as well as introduce and familiarise the fans with the new movement under these heads (Dexter Wiggle, Indovizualz, Committee, etc). Most of the interviews were actually conducted in 2009 with some updates for 2010, reason being its hard to keep up or catch up with most of the artists within this canopy that the fans want to know about. With the exception of Poison Ivy from the group Indovizualz, there were few women represented in this series unfortunately. We did reach out to the Maddam Scheez and Pesha the first lady of Black Ball’d but due to time constraints and other factors beyond ours and their control it was impossible to get the answers back. Same situation applied to the likes of P Dot C Period, Warcloud and Meko the Pharaoh of Northstar.

A name within this group that sparks a lot of response from fans is that of Warcloud aka Holocaust initially from the Black Knights. Over the past two to three years Wu-International has been trying to get an interview from him via his numerous contacts, forums, and people working with him and just when we thought we were close enough to do this, Warcloud got locked up early this year.

As a founding member of the West Coast Killa Beez movement with such a strong cult following, it was only logical to have the last week of this series dedicated to the artist with so many names and aliases, a man who has sparked so many controversies, questions and assumptions on Wu-Tang forums and possible the most talked about Killa Bee dead or alive outside the generals to date. Wu-International presents to you “Channel Warcloud Tribute Week”… dive in and find out some of the answers to the puzzles of Warcloud, read interviews from his close friends, associates and colleagues, read interesting reviews of some of his albums and get to hear some new, exclusive and unreleased projects and songs, Welcome to the Island of Dr. Warcloud... Enjoy!!
 

Brief History:

Born as Anthony Creston Brown from Long Beach, California, the artists known as Holocaust emerged from the group Black Knights with Crisis The Sharp Shooter, Rugged Monk and Doc Doom (RIP) and was signed with the RZA and taken into the Wu-Tang family tree. Holocaust had a relatively conventional style in his early days with the group, his unique wordplay and use of metaphors made him easily recognisable amongst his peers, The RZA once said in an interview that Holocaust ripped a song off his Bobby Digital In Stereo

album so hard that he decided to change the song’s name and named it after Holocaust. Whilst a soloist at heart, Holocaust has been involved with numerous groups and with every project or songs he worked on came drastic changes such as display of different styles in flow, writing and delivery, which consequently also came with different names, alter egos and personas, all these will be broken down in different sections below. With time Holocaust started working on solo material and abandoned the potentially offensive name and adopted Warcloud, he drastically changed his style to a more avant-garde, Ghostface-esque free association verse which gave birth to different names, alter egos and personas.

Styles:

Popular for his ultra-detailed multi-layered poetry and correct English pronunciations. Warcloud has evolved with time and has become hard to follow with his constant change of names with rhyme styles. Although his lyrics are still largely "multi-layered and ultra-detailed", his execution sometimes appears to be off-beat, rapid and unorthodox, something some fans love and others hate. This mainly new style is what he refers to as "free verse pattern" where rhyming is unnecessary and mostly sporadic. In his own words, he names this new rhyme style as "Mixed Forest Zone" (Warcloud), whereas his old style was referred to as "Old Jail Pyjama Room" (Holocaust), leaving styles displayed as Alcatraz, Robot Tank nameless to date or a fusion between both styles already mentioned. A critic once wrote that his new style is much more littered with an increasing use of clichés, metaphors and references to food, nursery rhymes, fables and other classic tales.

Names:

Holocaust and Warcloud are his most commonly known or used names especially by fans, however Warcloud has generated a number of names over the years, some random new names and others a combination of existing names, here are some of the ones we are aware of;

Alcatraz,
Architect,
Dr. Killgrave,
Drugstore Cowboy,
Frank Holocaustal,
Holocaust,
Mr. Appleby,
Trembling Eagle,
Warcloud,
Robot Tank,
Signs Of Hell's Winter

and much more….

Groups:

Warcloud has been involved directly and indirectly with different groups to date, most disbanded or he left before or after the completion of projects and some still unclear to his status within the group as he never officially left nor did he still claim membership of the group. Take for instance his status within the Black Knights, Holocaust has never claimed to leave the group even though they have not made music together for a while now and Crisis and Monk have always maintained that there is always space for Holocaust whenever he wants to come back and record with the group. Below are a list of some of the known groups he has been involved in;

American Poets [Warcloud, Sobretti, Pro The Leader & Anti The Decimator]
American Poets 2099 [Warcloud, Pro The Leader, Nova Kane & Atlantis Scroll]
Black Knights [Warcloud, Crisis Tha Sharpshooter, Doc Doom & Rugged Monk]
Da Monstar Mob [Warcloud, JulesUnique, Onslawt, Leviathan & Skarekrow] |
Gepetto Stromboli  [Warcloud & JuleUnique]
Ghost Pirates [Warcloud & Skarekrow]
Great Chiefs [Warcloud plus more]
Midnight Rambler [Warcloud, Pro The Leader and more]
The 12 Schools of Mystery [Warcloud, Pro The Leader and more]
The Pin Ball Gang [Warcloud, Pro the Leader, and more]
The Professional & Warcloud [Warcloud & Pro The Leader]
Warghosts [Warcloud & Bomshot]
Weapon Factory [Warcloud, Pro The Leader plus more]

Albums:

Controversy about this as some albums have been completed, some unreleased, others leaked but unreleased, some unreleased songs have been compiled to become an album, so for the sake of simplicity we will just categorise them according to releases.

Albums:
Nightmares That Surface From The Shallow Sleep [2002];
Smuggling Booze In The Graveyard [2002];
Blue Sky Black Death Presents: The Holocaust [2006]

Group Album / Duets:
Pro's Laboratory {The Professional & Warcloud} [2004];
The Professional & Warcloud Collabo Archives Vol. 1  {The Professional & Warcloud} [2008];
The Professional & Warcloud Collabo Archives Vol. 2  {The Professional & Warcloud} [2008];
Theatre Of Pain {American Poets 2099} [2010]; 
American Poets 2099 {American Poets 2099} [2010];
Warghost {Bomshot & Holocaust} [2010]

Unreleased Albums:
As Alcatraz: The Jigsaw Puzzle [2003];
History of Violence [2005]
Death Coast LP [2005]

Upcoming Projects:
In The End Thereof… Are the Ways of Death
Robot Tank
Warghost II: Into The Bat Lands {Bomshot & Holocaust}

Rumours / Mysteries & Controvesies.

The man with the highest amount of threads in Wu forums, Warcloud even had dedicated fan sites and MySpace pages unlike any other, and there are reasons for that apart from his rhyme skills, there is a mystery that surrounds the man that has fans second guessing and making up stories about his legacy, here are some of the ones we have gathered, some true and others are probably false;

• It is said that Warcloud walks with a limp due to a truck accident many years ago during a lone visit to Japan.
• Apparently there was a time in his life where Holocaust goes around rapping non stop for days, and RZA declared him crazy.
• There have been talks that he changed his name from Holocaust to Warcloud to avoid any negative backlash from the Jewish community, which is probably not true as he later released an album under that name.
• He has finished writing a series of children’s story books and is waiting on publishers.
• Rasual Allah stated in an interview with us that Warcloud joined forces with Lost Children of Babylon as their newest member, to date nothing has materialised from this union.
• His much talked about fight with 9th Prince from Killarmy and the bloody shirt he stores.
• His unwarranted beef with Nas, and Jedi Mind Tricks
• Over a 100 + collaboration and features on songs worldwide.
• Purely insane or a genius?

Whatever you think of the man, it goes without saying that Holocaust has been a rich and entertaining force within the Killa Beez and hip-hop in general and his obsessive fans will continue to push his name until he gets his full props, until he returns from prison Wu-International salutes the legend known as Robot Tank.

Free Holocaust!!!