Some news and links:

- The cover story in last week's issue of the Baltimore CIty Paper, The Elements of Style by Bret McCabe, is a big piece about Baltimore hip hop and club music's first generation, particularly Labtekwon, DJ Booman and Scottie B., looking back on the scene in the '80s and '90s, and the CP site also has bonus interviews with MC Chinchilla and graffiti artists Alco and Boodamonk. It's really great, interesting stuff, although, as I was telling Bret when he first showed me the article, I wish there was more emphasis on stories and the music back then, and less, I don't know, criticism of the new generation. Of course there's a lot more rappers in Baltimore now, and a lot more wack opportunists, but to hear them tell it, that's all there is now, when I know for a fact there are a lot of young cats around that are doing it for the love of the art, and aren't all about trying to get on TV and have a major label deal. More of them should give respect to Labtekwon and his generation, absolutely, but I don't feel like anyone gets a better sense of how special that era is just by talking about how much worse the current era is. But hopefully this will open up more of a dialogue and get people wanting to learn more about that history now, I certainly wish I knew more than I do. I've been wanting to do like a month of all '90s Baltimore hip hop on this site for a long time, maybe this'll motivate me to start putting that together and getting music from everyone's vaults from back then.

- I've been meaning to link to this for the longest time, but producer Ms. Tris has a blog and it's pretty great.

- World Star Hip Hop has a video interview with Billo.

- Michael Byrne reviewed K-Swift's Greatest Hits on the City Paper website recently.

- URB Magazine currently has a 'Next 1000' feature on their website about up-and-coming artists, and Greenspan and Midas are on there, along with probably some other Baltimore artists I haven't found on there yet.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore club, Billo, DJ Booman, Greenspan, K-Swift, Labtekwon, magazines/newspapers, Midas, Ms. Tris Beats, Scottie B.