Mario's Baltimore cred is questionable, since he won't tell interviewers where he went to school, and he moved to Jersey to record his first album anyway, but "Just A Friend 2002" and "Come On" were pretty great in spite of their faux-old school trappings, so I'm willing to root for the dude to take it back from Winans and become the super Mario brother of this R&B game again. This isn't doing it for me, though. His voice has deepened a little and lost that velvety texture, but what's worse is his clunky, halting cadence on the hook, and the generic beat and generic Cassidy don't help.

Freeway f/ Mully Man - "Streets"

I don't know how Mully keeps getting these collabos with out-of-towners like Free and the Clipse, but more power to him for spreading the Bmore sound around. I'm sure the sample is something really obvious that I'm just not spotting, but it's cool and dramatic sounding, I just wish the drums were hotter.

Q - "No"

New Rod Lee beat! A silly pizzicato riff over the same kick/clap kit that's on a bunch of his club classics. I have no idea if the mc's name is Q or Cue or Que or what, I've only heard it spoken on the radio, so if anyone knows feel free to set me straight. Clinton Sparks hyped it up pretty big when he debuted it on his show on Saturday.

Labels: Mullyman, Rod Lee