PenDragon - I Got Hits 4 Cheap: Draggy Baby Edition (Team Arson)

PenDragon's previous mixtape Revenge Of The Harm City King was one of my favorites of '06, and since then I've gotten some good thoughtful e-mails and blog comments from the dude, who also has his own dope blog at dragwroteit.blogspot.com. So I was looking forward to his new one, and I felt bad when Drag kept trying to get me a copy of it and one went to my old address and got lost and he had to send me another. It was really worth the wait, though, just because he really went outside the box and made something unique.

More than half of the mixtape is self-produced, including most of the best beats, and even when he rhymes over other beats he'll do something unique with it (like the crazy new layers added to the Fabolous "Make Me Better" beat) or go left field and rhyme over dance music (Justice and Baltimore's own Ultra Naté). And he does some pretty hilarious stuff like sampling the Cookie Monster or writing a letter to Lisa Turtle from "Saved By The Bell." And the straight up rap shit knocks, and he really knows how to put words together and put his personality across in the music. The mixtape includes the single "Imma Show U," which I posted here, oh wow, exactly a year ago. PenDragon actually put a Government Names logo on the back cover of the CD and had some really kind words for me on the shoutouts track at the end, so I might seem biased but I think this is one of the dopest local mixtapes I've heard so far this year. And you can download it for free off of datpiff.com or mixfiend.com so there's really no excuse not to cop it.

PenDragon - "Lost In Translation" (mp3)
I especially love the production on this track, dude could really make a name for himself as a producer if he didn't save all the good beats for himself.

Labels: mixtape/album review, mp3, Ogun