C Love and DNA - Respect, Vol. 1 (ItsBaltimoreBaby.com/Round Table Music Group)

As a fellow Baltimore hip hop blogger, of course I've got a lot of respect for C Love and I support whatever she's doing. And after the last few months of controversy and fallout from her leaving Style Wars and feuding with DJ P-Funk, it was good to see her land back on her feet with a new monthly event at Sonar, a release party of her first mixtape with one of Bmore's biggest mixtape DJs, DNA, keeping it moving on a positive, productive tip. It's got a lot of good tracks, some of which I've talked about on here recently, like the "Bmore Shit" all star remix, the Dirty Hartz/Mullyman joint, Golden Seal's "Sistahs Pimpin'" and Bossman's new single, plus some nice exclusives. Comp's got a new joint on there with an "I Wear My Sunglasses At Night" sample, but The Federation and E-40 already got that idea first.

One thing I like about a disc like this is that since it was put together by someone who's really knowledgeable of the scene, it's got a personal perspective to it, a flavor that some various artist mixes lack. C Love knows damn near everybody, and she's got most of the big names on here, but then she's got respected people who just aren't on every other mixtape, like Brown F.I.S.H. and Real 2 Real. You can order the CD from DNA's site, and I'm sure C Love will be hustling the mix at a lot of upcoming shows. If you check out C Love's MySpace page, she's got a few songs from the mixtape on her audio player, the Backland track is one of my favorites.

ShellBe RAW f/ XO - "Damn Shells" (mp3)
This has been my favorite ShellBe RAW track since I heard it on Street Radio 2.5 a while back, I think her whispery flow sounds better over these smooth kinds of beats. She's got a new solo mixtape dropping soon, when I saw her at the OOWE party I got a sampler with a few tracks from that, good shit. XO is only on the hook here but he's got such an ill voice, he sounds good on anything.

Dirt Platoon - "Movin'" (mp3)
I'd never heard of Dirt Platoon before, but this is the last track on the CD and it kinda snuck up on me and became one of my favorites, and it's produced by Phathead, who's also done tracks for Real 2 Real and M.O.L.

Labels: C Love, Comp, Dirty Hartz, DNA, Golden Seal, mixtape/album review, mp3, ShellBe RAW, XO