Claire Hux - Jammin On The One Mixtape Mixed By DJ Scottie B. (Unruly Records)

Claire Hux is kind of a new direction for Unruly Records, not quite Baltimore club music but not-not Baltimore club either, a weird hipster rap electro dance group featuring a rapper named DLake and a singer named Symbol. DLake had e-mailed me his solo mixtape last summer, but it was more of a DJ mix with a lot of random dance music on it, and I only review releases that are all Baltimore shit on this site, so I never really covered it here. Symbol fronts a rock band called Hot Magic, who I reviewed a show by a few months ago, and I thought they were pretty cool. I also saw Claire Hux at Artscape later on, but I didn't really know who they were at that point. I don't really know about these dudes, though. I know bitching about 'hipsters' is some obnoxious, played out shit at this point, which is why I usually avoid even talking about the topic. But I pretty much think that mashups and H*llertr*nix-type 'eclectic' DJs have just been this cancer of corny motherfuckers that has kind of infected every level of hip hop and dance music in the past few years. And I mean, the problem with this stuff is just that it's not that good; the lyrics are on some cutesy clever shit, the hooks are cheesy, and all the good beats are jacked from somewhere else, and there's also a lotta dumb skits. I guess I can respect the fact that people are trying to do some kind of fusion of rap and R&B and dance music, but when it doesn't work as any of the above and is just this big awkward frankenstein music, I don't even know what the point is.

Claire Hux - "2 Much Dick On The Dance Floor" (mp3)
This song actually made me laugh, that's just a funny concept for the record, can't go wrong. Plus they took one of my all-time favorite Baltimore club tracks (Debonair Samir's horn theme) and just did the vocals over that.

Labels: Baltimore club, Debonair Samir, mixtape/album review, mp3, Scottie B., Unruly Records