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