Architects Recording Studio presents Street Radio 2 (Hosted by DJ Kay Slay & DJ Radio)

If you check liner notes you know that a whole lot of Baltimore artists record at Architects, and Mike McIntosh has been taking the connections he made with his studio to put together these mixtapes. A few months ago when I met Jason Torres he was telling me about the first Street Radio mix right before his City Paper article about Architects came out. A lot of the tracks are previously released tracks from other albums and mixtapes, some radio singles like "Jump Da Club Off" by Barnes of Street Official and "Hello" by D.O.G. But it's still a good selection, music from Mullyman, Ogun, Tim Trees. And since it's a Streetsweepers mix, they stick a Papoose track on there for no particular reason. It is cool to hear Kay Slay shout out a bunch of people from Baltimore, though. Also, I gotta give the Street Radio mixes credit for real thorough liner notes that credit the producers of each individual tracks and give contact info for the artists, I wish more mixtapes did that. I'm not sure where you can buy these, I think Downtown Locker Room might carry them.

Cooli Hi - "Beat It Up" (mp3)
Cooli Hi is tight with Dru Hill and Little Clayway, his voice reminds me a lot of that Ray Cash song on this. I heard this song on 92Q a while back and it kinda blew me away because Blaq Starr finally did what I always wanted someone to do, take that fast kick drum rhythm from Baltimore club music but put it under a slow Southern type hip hop beat. It's got a real cool dark sound too, not all upbeat like a lot of hip hop songs with elements of club music in them.

Bossman f/ Lil Mo - "Off The Record (Remix)" (mp3)
Pretty much the same song as the original, with Mo floating some vocals over that give the track a nice vibe without really intruding on it. Ever since Bossman said "Off The Record" is gonna be on his Virgin album I've been hoping he'd change the 2nd verse. It's one of my favorite songs by him, but all the industry shit he talks about in that verse is really dated, stuff people were talking about in '04 but are gonna barely remember by the time his album drops. He does change the wording of a couple lines to update them here, though, "I'm sick til I hurl with this Best of Both Worlds" becomes "I'm glad they put an end to this Best of Both Worlds," and "ain't no albums been hot since 50 Cent dropped" becomes "ain't no albums been hot since 50 first dropped," which is kinda funny, like Bossman is real careful to not let people think he liked The Massacre. I still think he should change the verse more, personally, like, he doesn't need to acknowledge the ancient non-beef with Jadakiss on his major label album. 1Up switches up the track a little too, dropping out the beat here and there for certain lines, it sounds hot.

Q - "Take A Walk With Me"
You can listen to this track on Q's MySpace page, produced by Clinton Sparks and his verses on this are the same rhymes he did a cappella at the Ottobar show that he really won over a lot of people with. You can watch that performance at The Music Sampler.

(photo by Jefferson Jackson Steele)

Labels: Architects, Baltimore City Paper, Barnes, Blaq Starr, Bossman, Cooli Hi, D.O.G., Mullyman, Ogun, Tim Trees