Ying Yang Twins - "Pull My Hair"
People will probably call foul on them making a formula out of the surprise success anti-formula of "Wait", but fuck it, they can keep doing as many of these as they want. Another super-minimal DJ Smurf/Mr. Collipark/Beat-In-Azz (he needs to pick one name and stick with it, they don't even refer to him by the same name(s) in the 2 articles about him and Ying Yang in the current Source) production, metronome click and amazing pixelated bass textures. Instead of whispering, this time both of them talking in the lowest, calmest voice they can manage. Pushing the X-rated shit even further, "I'm walkin' over to you with the rubber/(moan) yo ass in trouble", girl screaming "fuck me daddy, spank me daddy" on the chorus.

Young City - "Lil Daddy"
Chopper from Da Band under his even more generic official name, solo under the Bad Boy South banner now, coming next after Boyz N Da Hood, hanging out in the last 8Ball & MJG video, Diddy on hypeman ad libs. There's a rumor starting to go around that Chopper got Monica pregnant, and these two pages are supposedly their baby registries. Their real names and her hometown and everything. Poor C Murder. This song has nothing to do with that, the title is just kind of a funny coincidence.

T. Weaponz f/ Pitbull and Notch - "Mira Mira (El 3mix)"
I heard this song from Jeff, who really wants to hype it and get it heard, and I like it too so I'll throw a little hype on it. I love the xylophone-ish sound that kind of stutters and falls into weird clunky triplets over the beat.

Yesterday in the Baltimore Sun there was an article about iPods that featured the playlists of a bunch of local people, including K-Swift (the online version doesn't have the pictures from the article). Her playlist has the Paula Campbell and Lil Mo songs that I wrote about last week on it.

Labels: Baltimore Sun, K-Swift, magazines/newspapers, Paula Campbell

Here are some mp3's I got a request for of a couple Baltimore songs I've written about before:

Bossman - "Oh"

Paula Campbell - "You Make Me"

Labels: Bossman, Paula Campbell

2 short clips of Just Blaze in the studio, here and here.

Huli Shallone f/ Mannie Fresh - "Makin' Moves
OK, I've been throwing some dirt on Fresh's name lately, but that doesn't mean I'm not gonna get excited when he collaborates with someone from Baltimore! He talks on the intro and says Huli's name and shouts out Hit Em Hard Records and everything! I have no idea what the title is, I put off writing about it when I first heard it a couple weeks ago hoping I'd find it out but fuck it, I won't bother to guess what it is based on the hook ("hey ma, i know you wanna see me shine, I been lookin' for a soldier I can hold, ma, got some drink, got some dro" etc) or anything, so if someone knows what it is lemme know (EDIT: the title is there now, obviously). I'm kinda surprised something like this is out so soon after Huli's album, which still has a single on the radio. It's nice, though, one of those bright/busy beats that reminds me of early 00's CMR, with an awesome noodly keyboard figure that creeps up in the second half of every verse followed by descending synth brass whole notes. On the blocks of Bmore, witnessin' firsthand, gettin' a hundred grand, standin' tall like Yao Ming, you know how we do things.

Paula Campbell - "Caught Up"
New single! Breezy jam with an early 90's vibe, heard it for the first time in my car on the first really warm day of the year, perfect springtime/early summer vibe for that. That title is kinda tired though since Usher and Ja Rule just had singles called "Caught Up".

Labtekwon - "Uhnnn Huhnnn"
Baltimore dude that's been rapping forever and gets a lot of respect and puts out 2 albums a year, but I've never really heard much of his stuff. Sometimes in the press he comes across as one of those high and mighty humorless KRS types who's trying to protect hip hop as an art form from all the people that want to make money off it and be famous. But here he is w/ a video in rotation on BET Uncut with camcorder quality footage of hanging out with stripper chicks for a song with a weird funny hook and a clunky goofy beat, so maybe there's more to him. Or less, or something.

Brooke Valentine f/ Bossman - "Long As You Come Home" Remix
Probably not official, just a couple new verses tacked onto her song, and the 2nd one is pretty good. Not really one of my favorite songs on Brooke's album, but the beat's a good fit for Bossman.

Ray Lugar - "MTA"
My first guess was Maryland Transit Administration but it stands for "message to adults", sweet conscious joint with kids singing with thick Baltimore accents on the chorus, "stop sleeping on the youngstas".

Lil Mo - "Dem Boys" / Mullyman - "Problems"
New official single from Syndicated! OK, technically Mo isn't from Baltimore but she still lives in Maryland (Odenton, I think, which is out in the sticks/burbs) and will be shooting the video for this in Bmore soon. Dunno if I got the title right, could be "them boys" or "dem boyz" or something, but it's hot as hell, nastiest drums on an R&B record since "1 Thing". / Mully jumping on the beat and making his own song from it with a new hook and everything, kinda hot.

Labels: Bossman, Huli Shallone, Labtekwon, Mullyman, Paula Campbell, Ray Lugar

Ogun is the man responsible for for getting tracks from half the MCs in the city for the Movement mixtapes (copped the new vol. 3 at the show, post about it coming soon), so naturally he's gonna put together a big lineup for his own album release party and make it a real event. Skarr Akbar was up in the place too but didn't perform. At the beginning of the night they let a few people come up for an open mic before the billed performers started. It was kinda funny how it wasn't a battle but the first guy that went up busted a written that was clearly worked out to be ridiculing an opponent, and he was the only person onstage.

Tha Plague is a group of three girls, they got a lot of crowd reaction. One of them introduced a song by saying "you ever fuck with a producer and then they want their beat back? well guess what, we're keeping the beat, this is gonna be on the album! take us to court, we don't give a fuck." It was a good beat, too. Paper Trail was a couple of tattooed white dudes wearing tons of Orioles gear. Their best song had a sample of the "herbin' em in the home of the Terrapins" line from "Izzo". I'm trying to remember more about Bas or Real 2 Real. Bas's DJ/producer was this really weird dude with dyed blue braids and a long black trenchcoat with no shirt underneath and he played a song by some alt-rock band, I think Chavelle, before their set.

Bossman setlist: Opening Arguments / Oh / Let's Go / Get Loose / Who I Am / Face Down / Dat Night / Off The Record

There were some technical difficulties right before Bossman went onstage, so he was waiting on the stairs from the backstage with his mic while they were sorting it out and went ahead and did a few bars a cappella until they got the beat worked out for the first song, and he came out in a green/white/yellow Adidas jacket and white A's cap. He had Dollars and Tony Manson from NEK with him, they mostly only did a verse or two of every song and then cut it off, which was kinda disappointing to me, my favorite verse on a lot of those songs is the 2nd or 3rd. He played a new song, "Let's Go", that he said is his next single that's dropping in 2 or 3 weeks, sounded good, kinda different, minimal sounding. He got some crowd reaction for certain songs but overall people weren't really moving for him like they were for some other acts. I think maybe because half the people there are trying to get their own careers going and want to be in the position he's in. Plus Bossman does come off kinda cocky, saying stuff like "charm city's king, fuck anyone else that's on the radio", I can see people being jealous and resenting the dude.

Ogun had a pretty energetic short set with the other Real On Purpose guys, Ammo and Profound. They mentioned a couple times that Ammo is 15 years old, he doesn't look or sound that young at all and he's pretty tall. Apparently he has a recurring role The Wire. Right before Ogun was about to do his last song, the venue cut off the sound and said that it was 1:15 (the curfew for all shows in Baltimore, which is bullshit) and they had no choice, just doing their job. Immediately half the crowd got all heated and a couple people were shouting at the soundman and walking up to the booth. I got a little worried at that point, it was real tense for a minute. But they figured something out and got it together for one more song, the posse remix of "Bmore". Before and after that, Ogun did a cappella verses, and he was hyped up the whole night but at that point he was clearly really pissed off about the whole soundman thing and it was really intense and the best part of his whole set.

Labels: Bossman, G.E.M./Tha Plague, Ogun

Labels: Bossman, C Love, flyer, G.E.M./Tha Plague, Ogun, Real2Real

Because I posted last year about his Uncut staple "White Girls", Mighty Casey himself recently e-mailed me his new video "Black Rapping School" (warning: it is a huge huge Quicktime file).