DJ Tigga - It's Not A Fuckin' Game! Vol. 21 (Bounce Alot Productions)

For my latest Club Beat column over on Noise, I interviewed DJ Tigga, whose track "Independence Day" I posted here in January, and I've really been digging his production lately. You can check the article, but it seems like he's got a lot of exciting things going on with his company, Bounce Alot Productions, right now. This is his latest Baltimore club mix and he squeezes over 50 tracks in there, from the usual suspects like Rod Lee and Blaq Starr and Lil Jay and Mike Mumbles and so on. Generally I prefer club mixes that let each song play out a bit instead of ones that cram in as many as possible, but this one works with that approach and is just paced really well and never lets up the momentum, definitely one of the most consistently enjoyable club mix CD's I've heard this year. I wish I had a tracklisting, though.

K-Spin - "Why I'm Hot" (mp3)
I kinda feel like Baltimore club versions of whatever hip hop song is big at the moment have kinda been done to death lately, to the point that you know what they're gonna sound like before you hear them most of the time, so I'm more about seeking out the tracks with original melodies or lyrics or less obvious samples these days. But this is one remix that I really like, partly because instead of just taking the original Mims version, K-Spin remixed the reggae remix with Junior Reid and Cham, making little loops and hooks out of stuff like the sample of Dawn Penn's "No No No" and chopping Junior Reid's voice, and made something way hotter than if it was just a predictable "This Is Why I'm Hot" club remix. I don't even like the song that much! This version is just fire.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore club, Blaq Starr, mixtape/album review, mp3, Rod Lee