Barnes - The Last Shall Be First (Street Official/Sugar Water)

This album dropped back in April, but I've got a review of it in the City Paper this week (along with a review of the new Backland mixtape, which I'll post about later in the week, and a review by Jason Torres of the Gritty Gang mixtape I wrote about a while back). I posted Barnes' song with Joe Budden a few months ago, and that's on here, along with all his other songs that have been getting spins on 92Q. It's a pretty tight album, and it's got national distribution and you can buy it on iTunes and everything, so that's a good look. I don't really know what's up with Barnes these days, though, because a while back C Love posted a news story that said he'd been arrested as a suspect in a homicide, and people have been leaving "Free Barnes" and "come home soon" messages on his MySpace page. So hopefully he's not in some serious hot water right now.

Barnes f/ Highs-N-Pistol - "Tattoo Tears" (mp3)
I remember way back around last summer when 92Q was playing this song and I never really wrote about it because for the longest time I wasn't sure who it was by. So it's cool to finally have a copy of it, it's a kind of dark, spooky sounding song but it's a banger.

Barnes - "Middle East" (mp3)
One of my favorite tracks on the album, something to really rep our region with.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, Barnes, mixtape/album review, mp3, Street Official