I've never been that into street DVDs, as important as they've become to underground hip hop everywhere. I respect everyone that I see out at events with their cameras, documenting everything for posterity, I'm glad someone's doing it, but a lot of times the product are just too long and don't have that much to do with music, which means I'm not real interested. A lot of Baltimore artists this year have released DVDs along with their CDs, including PX (Parts Unknown), Little Clayway, and D.O.G., though, which is kind of a nice supplement to the music, and there have been a lot of other Baltimore DVDs this year, and since I've gotten a few that people have asked me to write about, here's my little roundup, with MySpace links so you can look into copping them for yourself:



The Understanding Part 2: The Skarr Akbar Story (Akbar Enterprize Filmz)

This is Skarr's 2nd autobiographical DVD, and I remember getting the first one about a year and a half ago and learning about him from it, before I ever met or interviewed the dude. This new one, which he just dropped a few weeks ago, is really more of a revision than a sequel, with some of the same footage from the first one worked in with new stuff, a lot of local MCs (Bossman, Mullyman, Comp, Ogun) and producers (Dukeyman) and other folks giving their opinions on Skarr. It's all pretty well made and interesting if you already like his music, but if I had one major criticism, it would be that practically the whole first half of the movie is about how 92Q doesn't play Skarr's music, like he's obsessed with it. The movie is about 45 minutes long, with an additional half hour or so of live footage.

Baltimore Real Talk Volume 2 (Little King Ent.)

I first ran into someone from Little King Ent. about 6 months ago in Sounds N Da Hood and they gave me a copy of the first Real Talk DVD (which got a little mention in City Paper last year), and recorded me doing a drop, shouting them out and promoting my shit. I don't think my drop is on this new one, maybe they decided not to use it or it'll be on the next one. But it's pretty good, probably the best Baltimore hip hop DVD I've seen, featuring interviews and performance footage of Mullyman, Skarr Akbar, Los, Comp, D.O.G., B. Rich, Tyree Colion, Verb, Bigg Patch, Tim Trees, just about everybody. I've been seeing copies of this everywhere lately, so it should be easy to find.



B.L.O.W. (Pyrex Vision Productions)

I copped the Baltimore Life On Wax DVD at D.O.G.'s booth at Afram over the summer, and based on all the names on the back of the case (Bossman, Comp, ShellBe RAW, Tyree Colion, Mullyman), I expected it to be good, but I wouldn't know. That's because there was a scratch on the disc before I even took it out of the case, and no matter what I tried to play the DVD on, it would stop a couple minutes in. That's one reason I hate DVDs that have no menu or chapter selection, so if there's a scratch you can't even skip past it. I want my money back, dammit. Or at least a copy that works.

Overdose Volume One (Fishscale Films)

This isn't really a full on Baltimore DVD, but I ran into a guy from Underworld Records last year, also at Sounds N Da Hood, who gave me this DVD from 2003. In it, they travel through about a dozen different cities, though, and Baltimore is one of them. The Baltimore segment is only like 10 minutes, but there's a good interview with Ray Lugar.

Labels: Bossman, Comp, lists, Los, Mullyman, Ogun, Ray Lugar, Skarr Akbar