B-Ill - The Best Of B-Ill: Chapter 1 (Banga Bill Enterprises)

Banga Bill is a producer who's down with Star Status and Street Official Records and a lot of other labels, and if you listen to Baltimore hip hop at all you've heard some of his work over the years. I reviewed this mixtape for the City Paper recently, and it's a double CD that features his work with a ton of great Baltimore artists (Mullyman, Barnes, JI-900, Tha Annexx Click, Backland, Los, Blesst, Sonny Brown) as well as some pretty major out-of town MC's (Freeway, Joe Budden, Snoop Dogg, The Clipse, Jae Hood, Drag-On, Ghostface Killah, Memphis Bleek). Don't be confused by the cover art, though, none of the Baltimore rap featured on The Wire is on these CD's. But check out Bill's MySpace page where you can buy a lot of these tracks via Snocap.com. Since it's a double CD, I'll post a track from each CD:

Silohette - "Chicken Box" (mp3)
The chicken box is such a Baltimore thing, when I heard this for the first time a year ago I thought it was so brilliant that someone here made a song out of the concept. This track should've been a huge hit, in my opinion. Is her name spelled Silohette or Silowette, though? I've seen it both ways.

Los - "Ain't Shook At All" (mp3)
This is a pretty short track but it's hot, and it's always good to hear something from Los, he needs to put out a solo mixtape or something already.

Labels: Annexx Click, Backland, Baltimore City Paper, Banga Bill, Barnes, Los, mixtape/album review, mp3, Mullyman, Sonny Brown, The Boy Blesst