On my lunch break the other day, in a bookstore flipping through the new XXL with Jay-Z/Kanye/Foxy on the cover, out of nowhere I see this full page ad on page 120:

THE WIRE MUSIC GROUP PRESENTS
B. RICH
THE NEW ALBUM
BORN RICH
FEATURING THE HIT SINGLE
GROWN MAN
ALSO FEATURING
ALMOST THERE and WHERE YOU BEEN
COMING SUMMER 2005
WWW.BRICHMUSIC.COM

It kinda caught me offguard! I mean, it's been 3 years since "Whoa Now" blew up on Bmore and D.C. radio and he got signed to Atlantic, got flown out to L.A. for a couple weeks to maker a slicker remix and record a quickie album, made a video that was on BET every day, then they put out the album and it went wood and he got dropped and became a one hit wonder that people make milk carton jokes about. Which is probably just as well, because if he sold big then Baltimore would probably be looking like St. Louis right now (Plum Drank called him "a proto Chingy" once, which is kinda accurate). And I figured that would be the end of the story. I mean, a few months afterward, he had an independent single w/ an Al Green sample and I heard him on a radio interview, sounding dispirited talking about industry politics, and he played a show now and then as recently as last year. But aside from that he's kept a pretty low profile even on a local level. If he was gonna make moves as a rapper again, I figured he would've done it by now. I remember reading articles about him at the time that he was in college when "Whoa Now" blew and he dropped out when he got signed, but I figured after it all fizzled he'd just go back to school and move on with his life. If he wanted he could've just taken advantage of being a big fish in a small pond, appearing on all the local mixtapes and doing shows with the newer stars, eating off of the slowly coming up new scene and giving Comp and Bossman advice on what (not) to do after they got signed to majors. At least, that's what he should've been doing, I'd think, if he wanted back the grassroots Baltimore support he had to begin with. I mean, I should've at least heard something about his new record around Baltimore before seeing an ad in a national mag. I read the stuff on the website but I couldn't listen to the songs on my computer, so I can't say if those are any good. 80 Dimes was kinda decent, though, better than its reputation at least. Here's a song from it:

"Back To The Streets"
"They lock me up for the hook, I make bail, then kick the verse". This isn't really one of the better tracks on the album, he does the happy "Whoa Now" type stuff better, but I kinda like it because Dukeyman's production it is really clearly his attempt at something like Rod Lee's beats for Tim Trees that were ruling Baltimore at the time. That bass pulse, the tempo and the drum pattern, it's totally like a more ornate version of "Bank Roll".

Labels: B. Rich