D.O.G. - Champagne Dreams: The Prequel hosted by Clinton Sparks (Invisible Set Ent.)

I reviewed this for the City Paper a minute ago, it's growing on me, I'm looking forward to the LP. On the mixtape they shout out a December release date for the Champagne Dreams album but now it's coming out early '06. The funny thing is that in my review, I compare D.O.G.'s voice to Jim Jones from the Diplomats, and right after I wrote that he came out with his new single "I Get Dough" featuring Jim Jones, with a Lil Wayne sample on the hook. That song's real hot, I need a copy of that. Also check out D.O.G.'s MySpace page, which has more audio.

D.O.G. - "Hello" (mp3)
D.O.G. - "Hello" (Big Poppa Remix) (mp3)
His big radio hit, and the remix over the Biggie beat. He just shot a video for it out in L.A. and is looking to get it played on BET, so look out for that. Sorry that I've been writing about some kinda old stuff lately but I was waiting til I could post mp3's again so now I'm just catching up before I get into the brand new stuff.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, D.O.G., magazines/newspapers, mixtape/album review, mp3

DJ Rod Lee - Operation: Start-Up (Club Kingz/Morphius Urban)

After the success of Vol. 5: The Official and it kind of being at the center of the national press explosion around Baltimore club music this year, Morphius is now reissuing Rod's old CDs, starting with 2001's Operation: Start-Up, which was his first mix CD after a few years of issuing tracks little by little on 12"s. Matter fact I don't really know if club music really existed on CDs until the late 90's/early 00's, that's when my oldest mixes are from and when I was just starting to get into it. Morphius actually manufactured the original release of this, but they weren't distributing and promoting the Club Kingz stuff too until last year with the Lil Jay CD. New artwork, same photo cropped with different font and no more 92Q Jams logo in the corner. I personally think Operation: Not Done Yet is a hotter CD and I hope they reissue that one too soon, but this one is full of classic tracks and DMX samples and the Lynn Collins break. And it's almost entirely Rod Lee, plus a few tracks by DJ Technics and one by Booman (the free mp3 on the Morphius site, "Ding-A-Ling," is actually one of the Technics ones) and a lot of RL tracks with vocals by Keisha Diggs and Urban Legend and other people, from back when Rod didn't always do the vocals on his own productions.

Rod Lee - "Timz" (mp3)
I wish I had more than 26 seconds of this glorious track to share with you.

Booman and Jimmy Jones - "Shout" (mp3)
Produced by Booman with vocals by Jimmy Jones of "Watch Out For The Big Girl" fame.

Labels: Baltimore club, DJ Booman, mixtape/album review, mp3, Rod Lee

Comp - U Will Be A Believer: Bang-A-Rang Mixtape Vol. 2 (DNA)

This has been available on Comp and DNA's websites for a while now, and my review ran in the City Paper a couple months ago.

Comp f/ Lil Mo - "Be With You" (mp3)
I've gotten a couple requests for this song since I first wrote about it a year and a half ago, supposedly it was mislabelled as the b-side on the "Harder" 12" but instead there was just the instrumental/a cappella on the flipside.

Comp - "Strip Down" (mp3)
This is one of my favorite tracks, produced by TrackBoyz, this definitely deserves to be on the album.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, Comp, magazines/newspapers, mixtape/album review, mp3

Tha Plague - Hitzville Gotham City presents HitVillainz Tha Mixtape

Tha Plague did a release party for this mixtape a couple weeks ago at the 5 Seasons, good show, Skarr Akbar and EJ and ShellBe Raw and a few other people performed too, and Jason Torres reviewed the show in the City Paper. Shows like that really bring home how cool and unique it is that there's a lot of females in Baltimore hip hop that are making movies, rapping and putting together shows and releasing CDs. I don't think it's like that in a lot of other places. So big up to all them and Bosslady and C Love for that. The mixtape is good, hosted by Ogun with guest appearances from Skarr and Ammo and ShellBe Raw.

Tha Plague - "Get Them Hands Up"
I'm feeling the Bon Jovi sample on this track, I don't know if it's a freestyle over a beat from somewhere else like most of the tracks, though.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, G.E.M./Tha Plague, mixtape/album review, mp3

Over at my other blog, Narrowcast, I put together a list of my 20 favorite Baltimore releases of 2005, along with an mp3 from each CD. Here are some of those mp3s from the hip hop and club music releases. Happy holidays.

K.W. Griff - "Good Man" (mp3)

Bossman - "Law & Order" (mp3)

Juan Donovan - "Take It Like A Man" (mp3)

Tyree Colion - "Rise To The Top" (mp3)

Mullyman f/ The Clipse and Fam-Lay - "Got It" remix (mp3)

Ogun f/ Jitter B.U.G. and EJ - "Bmore" remix (mp3)

Manny - "Down The Hill" remix (mp3)

Huli Shallone f/ Paula Campbell - "Work That Body" (mp3)

Skarr Akbar - "Switches" (mp3)

Little Clayway f/ Cooli High, Tim Trees, Cappadonna and DL - "Tha Murda Collaboration" (mp3)

Jimmy Jones - "Watch Out For The Big Girl" (mp3)

Ammo freestyle (mp3)

Comp - "Official" (mp3)

Labtekwon - "Father's Day" (mp3)

D.O.G. - "Higher" (mp3)

Labels: Baltimore club, Bossman, Comp, D.O.G., Darkroom Productions, Labtekwon, lists, Little Clayway, mp3, Mullyman, Ogun, Skarr Akbar, Tim Trees, Tyree Colion

Bossman and DJ Envy - This Is A Warning

This has been out a couple months but my review just ran in the City Paper last week. It's a good mixtape, although there's a lot of old stuff on there that I'm already familiar with. The interview tracks where Bossman talks to DJ Envy, I guess on Hot 97, are real interesting. He talks about the producers he's getting on the album: Chad West, Kwame, 1Up and "I definitely got my man Rod Lee, y'all gonna hear about him, that's a Bmore producer." It's encouraging to hear him say that and rep the local sound and explain club music a little before playing "Face Down," which if you ask me, that needs to be on the Virgin album, that's a hit record (although I still like the remix from the Charm City's King mixtape better than the original version that's on this). But mostly his talking points are the whole "the East coast is back" thing, which is only slightly less dubious than the "hip hop is back!" slogan that Kanye successfully campaigned for his first album on. I mean, I'm hesitant about embracing Baltimore's whole reputation as a 2nd rate New York or whatever, but that is kinda the vibe, so I guess that's cool, that's more true than some fake Southern type sound. He's definitely going for a NYC classicist vibe, trying to get a DJ Premier beat for the album and everything.

Bossman - "Jackin 4 Beatz"
Juicy / We Gonna Make It / Who / What Happened To That Boy / Make Her Feel Good / Lean Back / Soul Survivor / Down Bottom / Tell Me / Deep Cover / Dre Day / A.M To P.M. / Next Episode

Bossman - "Pain"
This beat is fucking sick, I don't know if it's just a freestyle over some song I'm not recognizing or if it's an original beat, does anyone know if it is?

So yeah, mp3s are back, and I'll be hitting you with a lot of music from now on. For now I'm putting them on Rapidshare, which means they'll be up permanently, unless any artists ever ask me to take it down.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, Bossman, mixtape/album review, mp3

Check out the December issue of Music Monthly, which features cover stories on Mullyman and D.O.G. by Kelly Connelly.

Labels: D.O.G., magazines/newspapers, Mullyman

Ogun, Tha Plague, ShellBe Raw and EJ
@ Sonar
Thursday, December 22nd @ 9pm

Labels: flyer, G.E.M./Tha Plague, Ogun, ShellBe RAW, Sonar

This week the Baltimore City Paper published its year end issue, and 5 albums I voted for in The Year in Local Music poll ended up in the top 10: Rod Lee, Huli Shallone, Bossman, Mullyman and K-Swift. Congrats to all of them.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, Bossman, Huli Shallone, K-Swift, lists, magazines/newspapers, Mullyman, Rod Lee

Tyree Colion at Hammerjacks this Friday. Last time I saw Tyree perform he said that this is also going to be the last video shoot for "Bass Drop," and the radio ad lists a whole bunch of guests: Cappadonna, Tim Tress, Skarr Akbar, Mullyman, and did I hear right that they said AZ?

Labels: flyer, Mullyman, Skarr Akbar, Tim Trees, Tyree Colion

Check out my Tim Trees article in the City Paper this week. I was real hyped to do this since he's really never gotten much press despite his success and popularity in Baltimore, and I jumped at the opportunity after Manny reached out to me because of my old GN post about Tim from earlier this year.

(photo by Jefferson Jackson Steele)

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, magazines/newspapers, Tim Trees