Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Earlier this week I posted a flyer for this The Wire soundtrack in-store event at Best Buy on Friday. But I've since gotten another flyer, and confirmation that there will be live performances from the artists on the CD, not just a signing or meet-and-greet. I'm surprised to see Tyree Colion's name on the flyer, since last I'd heard he was locked up, but maybe he's out now. I hope it's true and he's there to perform tomorrow.
There's also a new feature on the HBO website about The Wire music supervisor Blake Leyh. There's a sidebar to the article in which Leyh talks about songs that he wanted to use in the show that never made it on an episode, including Young Leek's "Jiggle It," Mullyman's "Oh Baltimore," and Leyh's own "151 Canal," which I recently posted on my other blog, Narrowcast.
Nine out of the ten episodes of the 5th season of The Wire have either aired on HBO or been available OnDemand, and the series finale goes OnDemand next week. I've written several Narrowcast posts about the last few episodes. The songs by Baltimore artists that have been heard in this season so far include "What You Know About Baltimore" by Ogun and Phathead in Episode 54, "I'm Good There" by Mullyman in Episode 56, "The Ooh Ahh Song" by G.E.M. and "Ayo" by Bossman in Episode 57, and "So Fresh" by Bossman in Episode 59.
Labels: Bossman, Diablo, Dirty Hartz, flyer, G.E.M./Tha Plague, Mullyman, Ogun, The Wire, Tyree Colion, Young Leek
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
J.S.O.U.L. & Ab-Rock present The J ROCK Project
Ab-Rock's full-length album The Mid Midlife Crisis is still forthcoming later this year, but he's been pretty busy since the last mixtape from him that I wrote about. He was a recently featured guest on Bmore Original Radio, he shot a video (which there is a teaser for on YouTube now), and The J Rock Project, his collaboration with R&B singer J.S.O.U.L., recently released an internet mixtape and will be performing at the J Dilla tribute @ the Turntable Club this Friday. The mix is just a short 26-minute EP, a nice little low key listen with both of them rapping and singing, respectively, on every track, and and you can download the whole thing for free here. I like Ab-Rock, the way he raps kinda reminds me of the way Denzel Washington talks, if that makes any sense, just comes across really relaxed, which makes this collab sound less forced than hip hop/R&B duos usually feel.
Ab-Rock and J.S.O.U.L. - "RockMcs" (mp3)
This has always been one of my favorite Ab-Rock stracks, I love that herky jerky groove of the beat.
Labels: flyer, mixtape/album review, mp3, Turntable Club
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
After the January lull I've had a crapload of stuff up on http://noise.citypaper.com this month, including the Club Beat with DJ Excel and a news item about the Darkroom Productions album due out in May, as well as lots of live coverage. On the hip hop side, there were reviews of Deep Flow Entertainment's Rock Da Mic @ Club Taste, and Heavy Gold/Billo/Yuk/Dirt Platoon @ Suite, and silent auction of The Wire merchandise @ the Baltimore Museum of Industry featuring music by Diablo, Rod Lee and the Backyard Band, and Ogun/Bossman/Comp/B.O.M.B./Verb @ 5 Seasons for the Hip Hop 101 (R.I.P.) welcome home party for Skinny Suge (although it looks like he's back in trouble already). And on the rock side, I saw Avec/Karmella's Game/Remote Islands/A Sunny Day In Glasgow @ the Lo-Fi Social Club, and Gunwife Gone/MacGregor Burns Band/Old Souls @ Frazier's, and Thrushes @ Rock-n-Romp at 2640, and Biff Tannen Overdrive/At Shiloh/Abracadaver/Define Me A Serial Killer @ the Local Highrise. In addition to myself and the CP editors, the page now also features contributions from Raven Baker from Beatbots, so it's good to have another person to help hold things down and keep interesting stuff on Noise.
Labels: 5 Seasons, Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore club, Billo, Darkroom Productions, Diablo, DJ Excel, Heavy Gold, Hip Hop 101, Noise, Rod Lee, The Wire
Monday, February 25, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
K-Swift The Club Queen - Strictly For The Kids 2 (Unruly Records)
I've always liked the fact that K-Swift sometimes does these Baltimore club mixes aimed specifically at kids and for their parents to buy, with all the swears cleaned up and everything. Baltimore club is sometimes as explicit as hip hop, and K-Swift probably has a younger fanbase than any other DJ in the club music, and she has to have clean versions of songs to play on the radio anyway, so I think it's a really good decision to make this kind of thing available. K-Swift has actually released a couple mixtapes in the Jump Off series since this one dropped last year, I need to catch up on them but I'm still jamming to this. This one features a lot of great tracks from '07 by Say Wut, Blaq Starr, K.W. Griff and more, and K-Swift now has a online club music store where you can buy this, among other recent CDs.
Rod Lee - "Change Positions" (mp3)
This song is great, I included in my list of the top 10 Baltimore club tracks of 2007, but I think it's kinda funny that K-Swift included it on this mix. Even without any swears it's pretty obvious that the voice on the track is talking about sexual positions, y'know? Rod Lee's dropping a new album in March, I'm looking forward to that.
Labels: Baltimore club, Blaq Starr, K-Swift, KW Griff, mixtape/album review, mp3, NSW (Say What), Rod Lee
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Hip Hop 101 is dead
Say it ain't so, Sonny! At C Love's town hall meeting just a couple weeks ago, someone made the excellent point that, as much as Hip Hop 101 is old news to people in the scene, and people might take it for granted, we'd all miss it if it went away. And sadly, we're about to find that out first hand, since this Monday will apparently be the last Hip Hop 101. I always thought it was a great event, I made sure it got best weekly event in the City Paper's '06 Best Of Baltimore issue, and covered probably five or six Hip Hop 101 shows on Noise in the past year. But as great as it was to have that weekly showcase to accomodate all the artists in the city that need to get out there and perform, I'm sure it was hard to get a good turnout every week. Maybe now someone can get something big and monthly going on again that can feel like a real event every time, I don't know, but not having this kind of showcase will be a big loss to the scene. 5 Seasons is going to keep having shows as far as I know, and Sonny says he'll still have Monday night there with no performances, but this might be a good opportunity for him or someone to try and start something new with a clean slate. Anyway, here's Sonny's full announcement:
THIS MONDAY THE RIP PARTY FOR HIPHOP 101
BUT PEOPLE WILL 4EVER LOOSE SHIT GOOD IN THERE LIFE IF THEY DONT REALISE WHAT THEY HAVE! WATCH WHATS GONNA HAPPEN AT THESE VENUES NOW.. ONE THING I LEARNED IS THE PEOLE WHO SAY THEY REALLY LOVE YOU REALLY DONT LOVE YOU. THEY ONLY TRYING TO GET WHERE YOU AT OR THEY TRYING TO PICK YOUR BRAIN FOR INFORMATION BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW SHIT..LOL.. THIS SHIT IS CRAZY.. I WILL ALWAYS MAKE MONEY IN WHATEVER I DO!!!! come out and support next Monday.. NOBODY should be mad!! obviously this is what The artist wanted shit if they didnt want this to happen they would've supported more!
For everyone that did support from day 1 to now I want to thank you for your support. BUT i am sad to inform you all that from the 20-30 people that continued to come thru every week, it just was'nt enough.. HIPHOP 101 on Mondays at the 5 seasons is DEAD! The lack of support from the artist, ego trips and pettiness, and pretty much no people pretty much put this in the ground! It sucks because we ran this for 3 years with only 2 incidents there.. I won awards there, watch people row into local celebritys in there for this to happen! i hate when money get thrown in the equation but i or my partner Mr Wilson just cant afford to not only pay the club at the end of the night.. but pay everyone involved WHEN THERE IS ONLY 10 PEOPLE OR 20 PEOPLE IN THE CLUB SUPPORTING.. I feel as though Shaka Pitts, and DJ jabril... along with the special guest such as Squirral Wyde and G Major and not 4getting Me'aze Millioni deserved waaaay more then what we gave them for all the hard work and dedication they put to make HIPHOP 101 a place for not only us.. but EVERY artist in this city. I even went without getting paid for 2 months just so the club and my people can walk out of there with at least enough money to put in there gas tank. I know people will say awww it was'nt promoted right and shit BUT thats not the case, People in this artistic community and not just here in Baltimore but everywhere want shit and not bring anything to the table. People always talk that support shit but do they really support? NO! Hip Hop 101 was a GREAT brainchild but maybe when people start understanding how this music business works they will soon understand what we was doing here for the artist. Come on we brought you a AWARD SHOW that i will continue to do EVERY YEAR.. Ok Ok Ok i didnt do it right last year.. but i did it in 3 weeks (whatdoyawantfromme) and I got the BUSINESS from folks that REALLY thought they was getting it in crazy but was'nt. So when i book them for a show down there at the club, they don't bring NOBODY! usually when you are killing in the street your FANS come to support.. Well it did'nt happen that way. But it never very rarely happens.. People see that the club is packed so they immediatly thinking YOU are caking off BUT man after you finish paying the club and EVERYBODY involved you suppose to make a good share of money BUT you don't! Those days of having 30 people in the club or when it was'nt hardly anybody? well we have to come out of pocket for that.. So we decided to DEAD that shit...
On a lighter note though I will continue to keep MONDAY NIGHT at the 5 seasons.. there just wont be NO PERFORMANCES! I will continue with the BLAMMY AWARDS as well as THE FRESH FEST! I will have performances BUT the performances will be NATIONAL ACTS ONLY with maybe 1 local act opening up. I will have events for local artist such as battles, and shows but at a different much bigger venue. This monday at HIPHOP 101 will be the last show.. I am doing ANOTHER SHOW BUT it is going to be the FAREWELL PARTY! AT THE END OF THE NIGHT THE MICS WILL BE OPENED UP FOR THE EMCEES IN THE BUILDING TO GET IT IN ONE LAST TIME!!!! THIS MONDAY IS GONNA BE CRAZY!!!! DO NOT MISS THIS PARTY.. CAUSE THE MONDAY AFTER NEXT IS GONNA BE THE NEW SHIT ON A MONDAY NIGHT....
Labels: 5 Seasons, flyer, Hip Hop 101, Sonny Brown
Friday, February 22, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
DJ Booman f/ Ray Lugar, Lic Shots and Mullyman - "Move Over" (mp3)
Booman e-mailed this track out a couple weeks ago, and when I finally got around to hearing it, I was blown away. Sick beat, great lineup, straight hip hop and no club music (and I've always wanted to hear more of his hip hop production), and the biggest surprise is that Booman himself spits the first verse. I didn't really know he rapped, and he's so soft spoken in person that I definitely didn't know he'd go in like this sounding mean as hell, "I got niggas nice with them hammers, I call 'em Thor/ if you weak in Baltimore, then we call you a whore/ independent game is lovely, man, fuck them labels/ what you bringin' to the table if I'm bringin' the table?" Good to hear him and Ray Lugar on a record, too, since Booman always DJs at Team Fifty events. So Booman is dropping a solo album full of collabs like this, and he and Labtekwon, who are dropping the 410 Pharoahs album in June, are performing at the Ankh Ba Records "410 Funk Night" at the Knitting Factory in NYC next Tuesday, February 26th. This really might be my favorite track out of Baltimore so far this year, but hey, y'all got 10 months to try and top it.
Labels: DJ Booman, flyer, Labtekwon, mp3, Mullyman, Ray Lugar
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
NOE has been on a lot of Jim Jones/Byrdgang/Dipset projects in the past year or two, and I don't really post about them all individually because it's already been established that he's part of Byrdgang Records (and also because I'm sure as hell not buying a Jim Jones album). But the new Jim Jones video for "Love Me No More" just came out, and NOE is all over the second half of the video, doing the hook for the song "Byrdgang Money," so it's nice to see him getting some camera time all over BET.
Labels: NOE
Sunday, February 17, 2008
On Friday, I wrote a piece for the City Paper's Noise blog about the latest news on Darkroom Productions' Hamsterdam - The Album, which now has a May 27th release date, with national distribution via Koch Records. And, as you can see above, Darkroom is also featured in a big piece about Baltimore music in The Wire in the current issue of Vibe Magazine.
Bigg Patch - "Spine" (mp3)
Juan Donovan mentioned in a recent e-mail announcement that several singles from Hamsterdam - The Album will be out in March, by Ogun and TestMe and G.E.M. One of those singles, however, from Bigg Patch, is already available on last year's Hamsterdam Vol. 2: Stash 2 Da Strip (originally under the title "Put That Dick Up In Her Spine"). It was one of my favorites on that mixtape, dope Pimp C sample on the hook, so I think it's a good look for this new project. Between this and that "Diamond Don" joint I posted a while back I'm feeling Bigg Patch's music lately. Darkroom's MySpace page has another one of the album's singles, "Beautiful Bitches In Bad Neighborhoods" by Diablo.
Labels: Bigg Patch, Darkroom Productions, Diablo, G.E.M./Tha Plague, magazines/newspapers, mp3, Ogun, The Wire
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Baltimore hip hop DVD news
It's been a while since the last time I did a DVD post, but I've gotten some lately, so let's talk about 'em a little bit:
Even A Man Can Do This is a documentary about the women in the Baltimore hip hop scene, artists or otherwise, directed by Civil Jones. It's been in development for a while now, I talked about the film a bit in my article on the same topic, Ladies First, in the City Paper last year, but now it's done and I got a copy a few weeks ago. Actually, there's a scene at the very end where Civil Jones shows the article and shouts me out and gives a plug to Government Names, so I appreciate that. The film is just one hour long but covers a lot of ground, and features appearances by G.E.M., C Love, Ms. Stress, ShellBe R.A.W., B-Fly, Ms. Tris Beats, Jade Fox, and Golden Seal, among others. One of the most impressive things about it is in addition to the female director, pretty much everyone behind the scenes on the project is a woman: Amotion from Deep Flow did most of the camera work, and the score was all by female producers Ms. Tris Beats and Reina WIlliams. My favorite part of the movie is the footage of Symantyx's set at the 5 Seasons show, I was really impressed by her that night and that performance is the main reason I check for her music now.
Baltimore Real Talk Volume 3 is the third (duh) DVD from County from Little King Entertainment, and I know he went through a lot to get this one finished. I think he was supposed to have it done almost a year ago and then he got arrested while filming outdoors and there was a whole situation with him getting equipment confiscated and losing footage and having to work on it some more. But he finally got it done, and obviously he had no shortage of footage because this thing is 3 hours long. In my opinion, that might be a little too long, because even though I know and listen to a lot of these artists and am interested in the subject matter, some of the individual segments could've been edited down to be much shorter and more to the point. He still got some great stuff in here, including appearances by Los (who spits a great freestyle), Heavy Gold, NOE, Comp, Barnes, D.O.G., B.O.M.B., M.O.L.
Bigg Patch, and Mullyman.
Paused In Time is a documentary about Baltimore hip hop that I got contacted to do an interview for a while back. At the time they said it was gonna be a DVD, but since then I guess they decided to release it on their YouTube site in 8 or 9-minute 'webisodes,' and I guess the whole thing will be out on DVD at some point later. So far 4 webisodes have been posted, and my interview hasn't been in any of them yet, but that's alright since I don't really feel like I said anything interesting, maybe they should hit me back and try to get me to say something more substantial or opinionated than what I gave them before. Anyway, here's what's up so far:
webisode 1 featuring Beat Box:
webisode 2 featuring Comp:
webisode 3 featuring Komplex:
webisode 4 featuring Bossman and Ty Gudda:
Even A Man Can Do This is a documentary about the women in the Baltimore hip hop scene, artists or otherwise, directed by Civil Jones. It's been in development for a while now, I talked about the film a bit in my article on the same topic, Ladies First, in the City Paper last year, but now it's done and I got a copy a few weeks ago. Actually, there's a scene at the very end where Civil Jones shows the article and shouts me out and gives a plug to Government Names, so I appreciate that. The film is just one hour long but covers a lot of ground, and features appearances by G.E.M., C Love, Ms. Stress, ShellBe R.A.W., B-Fly, Ms. Tris Beats, Jade Fox, and Golden Seal, among others. One of the most impressive things about it is in addition to the female director, pretty much everyone behind the scenes on the project is a woman: Amotion from Deep Flow did most of the camera work, and the score was all by female producers Ms. Tris Beats and Reina WIlliams. My favorite part of the movie is the footage of Symantyx's set at the 5 Seasons show, I was really impressed by her that night and that performance is the main reason I check for her music now.
Baltimore Real Talk Volume 3 is the third (duh) DVD from County from Little King Entertainment, and I know he went through a lot to get this one finished. I think he was supposed to have it done almost a year ago and then he got arrested while filming outdoors and there was a whole situation with him getting equipment confiscated and losing footage and having to work on it some more. But he finally got it done, and obviously he had no shortage of footage because this thing is 3 hours long. In my opinion, that might be a little too long, because even though I know and listen to a lot of these artists and am interested in the subject matter, some of the individual segments could've been edited down to be much shorter and more to the point. He still got some great stuff in here, including appearances by Los (who spits a great freestyle), Heavy Gold, NOE, Comp, Barnes, D.O.G., B.O.M.B., M.O.L.
Bigg Patch, and Mullyman.
Paused In Time is a documentary about Baltimore hip hop that I got contacted to do an interview for a while back. At the time they said it was gonna be a DVD, but since then I guess they decided to release it on their YouTube site in 8 or 9-minute 'webisodes,' and I guess the whole thing will be out on DVD at some point later. So far 4 webisodes have been posted, and my interview hasn't been in any of them yet, but that's alright since I don't really feel like I said anything interesting, maybe they should hit me back and try to get me to say something more substantial or opinionated than what I gave them before. Anyway, here's what's up so far:
webisode 1 featuring Beat Box:
webisode 2 featuring Comp:
webisode 3 featuring Komplex:
webisode 4 featuring Bossman and Ty Gudda:
Labels: B-Fly, B.O.M.B., Barnes, Bigg Patch, Bossman, C Love, Comp, D.O.G., Deep Flow, G.E.M./Tha Plague, Golden Seal, Heavy Gold, Jade Fox, M.O.L., Ms. Stress, Ms. Tris Beats, Mullyman, NOE, ShellBe RAW
Friday, February 15, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Comp - "Whole Lat" (mp3)
This song is sick, Comp's been performing it live for a few months, but it didn't really click for me until Monday when he did it at the 5 Seasons, and people were acting like it was the biggest song he ever did. I had to go and grab it off his MySpace after that, looking forward to The Man With The Hand 2.
BEAT BOX
performing live at the National Aquarium in Baltimore
February 15th, 7:30pm for Black History Month
March 7th, 8:15pm for Women's History Month
Labels: flyer
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Metromix.com's Baltimore page recently ran a little piece on local music with a "a brief history of that B-more sound" and a round up of notable artists. It's got a couple of the more established artists you might expect (Mario and Sisqo, and also Tupac, which is kind of a stretch), a lot of the artists from The Wire soundtrack (Bossman, Mullyman, Diablo, DJ Technics and Rod Lee), plus a few others (Paula Campbell, Young Leek, and a girl I'd never heard of named Shiré a.k.a. Talia Burgess).
Labels: Baltimore club, Bossman, Diablo, DJ Technics, Dru Hill, Mullyman, Paula Campbell, Rod Lee, Young Leek
Monday, February 11, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
E-Nahledge - "Pay Homage" (mp3)
Last month I put E-Naledge on my Gov't Names 20 Most Anticipated of 2008 list, mostly on the basis of the sampler I posted a track from last year. And at the beginning of February, E-Nahledge sent me this new song "Pay Homage" to observe the occasion of Black History Month (but also commenting on it in a critical way, i.e. "we get played with the shortest month of the year"), and it's pretty good. Between this song and Mully's "Obama" joint it's been a really socially conscious week here on Gov't Names, and if people keep sending me songs that have a message I'll keep posting them.
Labels: mp3
