This shit is depressing. For all the good work we do here, our highest hit counts ever are for the last post and the Catchdubs parody. I know controversy sells, but damn. It's good that we can air this stuff out but that's not that I'm here for, I don't like all this self-conscious sniping at each other. You guys can keep posting comment after comment down there but I'm gonna push it down the page some. It's November and all this month I will be BEATING YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH THAT BALTIMORE SHIT. That's a promise.

DJ Debonair Samir, Tim Trees and Paula Campbell - "Breathe" rmx
Samir of the "Uncle Fucker" club track and "Friday Night" remix fame puts together a Bmore all-star track over the beat from the Fab hit, with Paula singing other words (freeze, please, TREES!) over the titular sample. TT flows hard over a much more expensive sounding beat than I'm used to hearing him on, that wonderful grimy voice, something like a cross between 90's mushmouthed Juvie and that tight, constipated tone of Trick Daddy or maybe Bun B. Repping Bdamore Records, the unit man, only MC in the city who's sold over 10k independently (which, yeah, isn't shit compared to dudes in some other cities, but it's something), 3 or 4 different songs that have hit #1 on the 92Q request line, still running shit even though his last CD kinda flopped.

Mario - "Let Me Love You"
I wasn't feeling the song he did a while back with Cassidy, so I'm relieved that the official first single/video for the 2nd album is this gorgeous grown up love jam. Gel&Weave were OTM in pointing out the downward portamento synth phrase that reminds them of 80's Stevie, although for me it more brings to mind Lionel or maybe "What's Love Got To With It". Either way, very 80's, but in that subdued, not purposefully retro way, like that Carl Thomas/LL song, except that sucked and this is good. The way he sings the word "hurts" with the perfect wounded emotion is great, although I don't know what he means when he says "you're a dime, plus 99", it sounds like he's mixing metaphors there. I know there's a lot of skinny oung dudes in the R&B game right now, but don't front on Mario, he's better than anyone who was in or is related to anyone who was in B2K.

Bossman and N.E.K. - "Face Down, Ass Up"
I think I mentioned this song in passing after I saw Bossman live a couple months ago. A lot of local rappers have tried to cash in on the popularity of Baltimore club music by trying to do rap/club fusion tracks, but they're usually not very good, mainly because the tempos are so fast and noone sounds good rapping over that unless they have a crazy Twista type flow, and even Twista sounds better over slow beats. But this is nice, stolen 2 Live Crew hook and lots of chants and repetitive parts, which is good because club music is 90% hooks and repetitive samples anyway. And a spooky synth line kind of like "Knuck If You Buck" is spooky.

Hazmatt - "31 Flavors"
Every rap station has at least one guy on the on-air staff who's trying to make it into the game and thinks it'll be his shortcut, that he's gonna take the Chris Luva Luva route to fame. At 92Q it's this guy. Always rapping on the ad spots and show intros and freestyling with whoever famous passes through the studio. His flow is actually kinda nice, he's got the friendly kind of voice like, again, early Luda, and he picks really good beats to flow on, like "Everything's A Go" and "Bad Boy This, Bad Boy That". He's kinda dorky looking, though, at least the one time I saw him battle in person. Now and then he slips one of his own joints into a DJ set, like this, kind of a generic take on the played out sex/ice cream metaphor.

Labels: Bossman, Debonair Samir, Paula Campbell, Tim Trees