Vote for the best Baltimore hip hop albums and mixtapes of 2006. E-mail your lists to Al Shipley at shipley.al@gmail.com by midnight at the end of Monday, December 18th, and results will be announced on Government Names later that week.

I've been covering Baltimore hip hop on the Government Names blog since 2004, but this year I really stepped my game up and started posting about every CD I could get my hands on, giving you information, mp3's to sample, and links so that you could purchase the music yourself. I really have no idea how much effect, if any, I've had on anyone gaining new fans or selling CD's, but I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from artists. Aside from word of mouth and download counts on my Rapidshare links (and untrustworthy sales figures, usually from the artists themselves), though, it's hard to quantify what fans are actually listening to. So I'm hoping this poll will answer some of those questions.

Since I fill my site (and other outlets like the Baltimore City Paper) with my opinion all year round, I'm gonna try and democratize my year-end wrap up and do a reader's poll. So basically, if you follow the scene at all, I want you to send me a list of your favorite Baltimore hip hop albums and mixtapes of 2006 (I'm not really trying to worry about Baltimore club or R&B or any other genres in this poll). You can list as many or as few CD's as you want, be it 1 or 100 or anything in between, as long as you number your list from favorite to least favorite, etc. And I want as much participation as possible, so basically if you've heard anything, I want your opinion. If you only copped 2 CD's and one of them was wack, then vote for the other one. And e-mail this poll to your friends, put it on your MySpace page, whatever, get the word out.

Artists should feel free to tell their people to vote for them, but showing love for artists outside their camp, too. You might effect the outcome of this poll by firing up your fanbase, but do not spam my poll or try to stuff the ballot box with fake entries, I want every vote to represent one real person. So if I feel like there's anything fishy going on, I reserve the right to throw out ballots or trash the whole poll and just put up my own personal best-of list. I'm just saying this to let you know: I want this poll to be representative of what Baltimore hip hop fans are really listening to, so don't fuck this up by trying to cheat or whatever. Nobody's getting a plaque or a statuette or a cash prize if they win, but I would like to think that this site has some authority and credibility in the scene and that placing highly on the poll is something that everyone who dropped a CD this year wants.

Below is an alphabetized list of links to all the Baltimore hip hop releases I wrote about on GN this year. By no means is that list comprehensive, since there are a lot of releases I haven't heard yet (Ms. Stress, NOE, Teop) or have heard but haven't posted about yet (ShellBe RAW, NC-17, Tate The Arsenal, The Homicide Rapper, Jade Fox), and I'm sure some things that I slept on entirely. But just consider those some nominations or suggestions, if you've forgotten what came out this year or want to pick some stuff up before voting. You have about a week and a half to send in your ballot.

Alevan - Came Here 4
Tha Annexx Click - Banga Bill Presents Chapter 16: Tha Return Of Da Blue
Architects Recording Studio presents Street Radio Volume 2.5
Architects Recording Studio presents Street Radio Vol. 3
Backland - Back In Business
Barnes - The Last Shall Be First
Bigg Patch - Goldenboy Volume 2
Billo “The Hood Rockstar” - Daily Grind Vol. 2 “We Got Another One”
The Black Family - The City is Ours
B.O.M.B. - King Of Da Streets Vol. 1
Born King - Born King
Bosslady presents Baltimore State Of Grind: 21 Different Ways Pt. 1
Bossman - BulletProof B
Bossman Vs. Skarr Akbar - Face Off: The Battle For Baltimore
B. Rich - Born Rich
C Love/DNA - Respect, Vol. 1
Comp - Bangarang City
Comp - Independence Day: Bang-A-Rang Mixtape Vol. 3
Cutthroat - Words Can’t Explain It Chapter 2.5
Dirty Hartz - It Is What It Is Vol. 2
DK - King Me
DNA - True Crime: Harm City, Volume 5
D.O.G. - Walk On Air: The Mix Tape
E Major - The Major General Mixtape
Finacy - Napoleon Complex
Golden Seal - The Official Brown Sugar Mixtape
Gritty Gang - Street Certified Goods
Hots - The Introduction
Huli Shallone - Huli Shallone
Imperial Records presents... Operation: Shutdown
Jon Boe - Before The Storm
Labtekwon - The Ghetto Dai Lai Lama V. 777
Labtekwon - DJ Jazzy Jerk presents Ghettoclectic Volume WON (King of the Slow Burn)
Little Clayway - Still Movin' Independently
Midas - Pay-Per-View
Mike Malachi - Malachi’s Way
M.O.L. - Money On Da Low
Mullyman - Still H.I.M.
PenDragon - Revenge Of The Harm City King
Profound and Ogun - Oil And Water 2
PX (Parts Unknown) - Hood Therapy
Ray Lugar - Exclusive Respect II
Ray Victory - Ready 2 Go!
Real2Real - Playground Legends
Skarr Akbar - The Bidding War Stars Now!
Skarr Akbar - The Cerebellum: General Part Four
Team Green - The Hostage Vol 1
Third Kind - Disaster Relief
Top Of The World Records - The Grand Opening
Tyree Colion - Tyree Colion presents Hustle Hard Blvd
Under Sound Music presents Breaking Ground, Vol. 1
UnReal - Dat Boyz A Problem
Yung Gist - The Baltimore Son
The Yung Huslas - Strickly Business Volume One

Labels: lists