baby d. a lightweight, hundred-situps-a-day prettyboy thug, lean and tattooed, dark brown eyes, coming out of southeast atlanta with hot, traditional songs, toasting on dirty, real atlanta beats that bear no resemblence to what comes out of atlanta after a couple seasons of atlanta rappers blowing up on universal, generic southern beats, sounding ultra provincial and selling a lot of records and getting cash with the oomp camp and grinding his way to a major label deal. he got the big push right at the apex of the first southern intifada, banner&flip/bonecrusher/ying yangs/lil jon on 106&park, selling records up north. the label got him the cash to get the right producers and the right features and a video with bonecrusher. the album was supposed to drop last spring-- maybe it was even before that-- but it never did and he disappeared back into southeast atlanta, where oomp camp had been usurped by all the other grinders following their template for money-getting in atlanta. but i guess he's back now, showing up on some mixtapes. that's good. check:

baby d - eastside, westside remix ft. lil c -- the record that blew d up in atlanta, flipped with a different beat from a different oomp camp in-house producer. this shit presses all kinds of correct buttons and sets it the fuck off. you'll be shouting out that E-A-S-T-S-I-D-E spelloff after the second rewind, and hitting the chants at the beat breakdowns, wishing you were bumping up against motherfuckers on packed dancefloor, shouting in their faces and trading perspiration.

baby d ft. lil c and loko - bouncin -- it's the hottest out the oomp camp on a quasi-bounce beat (it's got all the little bounce signifiers, the right break, that HOO! vocal sample but used sort of superficially), hence title. more amazingly hot shit, though.

baby d ft. lil jon and lil flip - hoe check -- was probably going to be a follow-up single after his video started blowing up and the album was in stores, but it never got much shine, just showed up on a few mixtapes. yeah, so, it's an oldschool lil jon beat, standard bass bombs under the beat and delicate chimes on the edge of drowned out. and, yeah, a standard flip verse, which is always nice to hear. and baby d thrown onto the end, feeling like an afterthought, checking the hoe-ass niggas, as the title suggests.

young jeezy ft. baby d - old school chevys -- i guess this is the first step in his comeback. mixtape heater with young jeezy, who's been getting fame and on everybody's album. sit through two jeezy verses conforming to the new atlanta lyrical standards and then hear baby d tear it up with filthy gangsta shit, "a nigga just got a chopper with a coolin system / don't make me fuck around and change your digestive system," and talk about heading back to the streets after the rap shit slowed down.