Today I officially announced the book I am working on, Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music, which is a project I have been thinking about and working toward for several years now. The official site for the book is ToughBreaksBaltimore.com, but I've also launched a page on the fundraising website Kickstarter.com with the goal of raising $5,000 by July 1st, and also recently began began posting on Twitter under @alshipley to promote the project. Many, many updates will follow on this blog, especially as the Kickstarter deadline gets closer, but for now I'll just attach the press release and ask you to spread the word!

Tough Breaks: The Story Of Batimore Club Music press release
Baltimore, Maryland, May 27th, 2010 ---

This week music critic and journalist Al Shipley is announcing his first book, Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music, and the launch of its companion website, ToughBreaksBaltimore.com. Over the last two decades, Baltimore club music has evolved from a nebulous, eccentric fusion of house music and hip hop, locally popular but virutally unheard of outside Maryland, to one of the mid-Atlantic city’s greatest cultural exports.

Over the past 5 years, the press coverage of Baltimore club music has increased exponentially, and Shipley has played an integral role in that progress, as a contributing writer for the Baltimore City Paper and the proprieter of the Baltimore music blog Government Names. And with the regular column The Club Beat, he’s interviewed dozens of Baltimore club producers and DJs, and broken major stories in the genre’s recent history, such as the tragic 2008 death of Khia “Club Queen K-Swift” Edgerton and the major label signing of club veteran DJ Class.

Despite a growing fanbase and media interest in Baltimore club music, much of its 20-year evolution has gone undocumented, relegated to underground clubs and white label vinyl 12”s far outside the public eye, even as thousands of Baltimoreans danced to its frantic 130 BPM groove. As the first full-length book to delve into that history, Tough Breaks aims to be a complete and definitive document of Baltimore club music, an oral history in the words of its participants with timelines, photos, discographies and thorough critical examinations of the music and culture.

Over the next few months, as Al Shipley conducts interviews and research, the book’s progress will be documented on the official website, ToughBreaksBaltimore.com, as well as his Twitter (Twitter.com/AlShipley). And throughout the month of June, Shipley will be raising $5,000 to finance the writing and publication of Tough Breaks with the fundraising website Kickstarter.com, as well as promoting the project via various print and online outlets, and a series of segments on Baltimore public radio station 88.1 WYPR.

Labels: announcements, Baltimore club

Correction: show date has been moved to July 3rd.

Labels: flyer, G.E.M./Tha Plague, Kane, Mania Music Group, Midas, Ron G., Soul Cannon

Height With Friends - Bed Of Seeds (Friends Records)

This is very much a continuation of the sound and format of the first Height With Friends album, last year's Baltimore Highlands, although I think it might also be a refinement and improvement on it. And like most Height albums, it's short and to the point, with most songs averaging 2 minutes each and the whole thing lasting less than a half hour. One of the things I really like about Friends Records, the new label putting out this album, is that they're pressing everything on vinyl. Over on the Band Camp page for the album, you can listen to some tracks and order the LP, and the release party for the album is this week. Also, last week I posted a video from the album, and talked about the album a bit in my WYPR spring music podcast.

Height With Friends - "Cold Crush" (mp3)
As Height's records have gotten kind of increasingly weird and diverse and less overtly hip hop, I'm glad that he still occasionally does songs like this that directly pay tribute to his old school rap influences.

Labels: Height, mixtape/album review, mp3

Here's the video for label executive-turned-rapper Tony Austin's "Dope Boy" off his Gangsta Grillz mixtape (LOL at the DJ Drama drops at the beginning of the video), another quality video from Sleepin Giant Media.

Labels: Sleepin Giant Media, Tony Austin, video

Labels: Comp, flyer, Tha Profitt

Labels: flyer

Los f/ Mario - "Sexy While You Chillin'" (mp3)
Here's Los's current single, which as far as I know is the first time Mario's collaborated with a Baltimore hip hop artist, good look.

Labels: Los, mp3

Here's the new Height With Friends video for "Dreams Don't Always Come True," one of my favorites off the Bed Of Seeds album out now.

Labels: Height, video

E Major f/ Tia - "Taking Over" (mp3)
It's only been a couple months since The Major Major Mixtape dropped and here's already some newer music from E Major, produced by Ms. Tris Beats.

Labels: E Major, mp3, Ms. Tris Beats, Under Sound Music

This week is the Baltimore City Paper's annual 'Sizzlin' Summer' issue, and I wrote a fun piece that's kind of a playlist of local summer jams. I talked to folks like DJ Booman, E Major, Shaka Pitts, PenDragon, Kane Mayfield and members of Kadman, Jumpcuts, Rapdragons, the Art Department, the Cameron Blake Band and the Out Of Your Head Collective, and they picked songs by Wye Oak, LMS, Skarr Akbar, the Annexx Click, Junkers, the Get Em Mamis, Rhinovirus, Billie Holiday, Celebration, Sri Aurobindo and Brown F.I.S.H. We've even got a player on the CP site where you can stream some of the songs.

(illustration by Alex Fine)

Labels: Annexx Click, Baltimore City Paper, Brown F.I.S.H., DJ Booman, E Major, G.E.M./Tha Plague, Kane, PenDragon, Rapdragons, Shaka Pitts, Skarr Akbar

Labels: Bourbon St, Club Reality, flyer, Jade Fox, Minlus McCracken, The Unstoppable Nuklehidz

Yuk f/ Mike Malachi - "Cruise" (mp3)
Yuk f/ Jazz - "Hard Times" (mp3)
Yuk (a.k.a. Mr. Livewire) from the group Yuk & Cut has a solo album called Your Unknown Knowledge on the way, and here are a couple of songs from it. Mike Malachi guests on "Cruise," and Jazz from Dru Hill appears on "Hard Times," which was produced by Malachi's longtime producer Ron Rico (Yuk appeared on Malachi's last album, and used to be on For The People Entertainment with Malachi's cousin Billo, so I guess that's the connection).

Labels: Dru Hill, Mike Malachi, mp3, Ron Rico, Yuk

The Nuklehidz sent me a damn flyer with no location on it, so hopefully they'll get back to me and I can add that to this post later.

3PM EDIT: ok, it's at Club Reality.

Labels: Club Reality, flyer, The Unstoppable Nuklehidz

Skarr Akbar - The Pursuit Of Happyness (Akbar Enterprize)

Among the dozens of mixtapes that Skarr's dropped over the years, now and again he puts together one that feels a little more like a cohesive album like The Epidemic, instead of a more scattershot street mixtape full of freestyles. And this is one of those, just 12 songs, half of them produced by Skarr along with some beats by local producers like Dukeyman. However, on some tracks he does steal some beats produced by Just Blaze and Hi Tek, and also stole the title of the mixtape from a Will Smith movie, so hopefully the honorable Mr. Beenexposed is already on the case and will bring this terrible criminal to justice. If you've seen Skarr live or heard him on mixtapes in the last few months, you've probably already heard records like "Mr. Popularity" and "Ventilation" and "U Already Kno," but those are dope songs and everything else is about as consistent as that. I was just saying the other day how glad I was that allbmorehiphop.com is finally tagging their mixtapes properly, but then this wasn't tagged at all, which kinda sucks.

Skarr Akbar f/ Barnes - "A Yeah Tho" (mp3)
Never really heard these guys on the same song together besides a couple big posse cut remixes, so it's dope to hear them really put together a good song as a duo, a real standout on this tape.

Labels: ALLBMOREHIPHOP.COM, Barnes, Dukeyman, mixtape/album review, mp3, Skarr Akbar

Bed Of Seeds release show
@ The Hexagon
Friday, May 28

Height With Friends
A special mega-set featuring Mickey Free, Emily Slaughter, Gavin Riley, PT Burnem, Travis Allen, Brendan Richmond, Liz Aeby, Pam Kurowski and Rob Dowler of Nuclear Power Pants
http://www.myspace.com/height

Lord Grunge (of Grand Buffet)
http://www.myspace.com/thegrungeman

Weekends
http://www.myspace.com/weekendstheband

Labels: AK Slaughter, flyer, Height, Mickey Free, P.T. Burnem

Labels: ALLBMOREHIPHOP.COM, Black Hole Rock Club, flyer, Skarr Akbar

DJ Jabril featuring Smash - Melt Da Pyrex (Surface II Air Street Media/Street Congress Entertainment)

Despite the way the cover art kind of plays up his presence, this really isn't a Smash mixtape like you might think -- it's really more of a DJ Jabril various artists mixtape along the lines of his Stash Box series, with Smash doing intros and drops and appearing on just a few songs (like 5 out of almost 30). And that's fine by me, since Smash is the kind of artist I only feel like hearing in small doses, a quick freestyle or a guest verse, and a lot of the other stuff on here is pretty good, other than way too many beats from wack fucking Drake songs. It has the Bossman/Mullyman joint, and songs by Ogun, Skarr Akbar, Barnes, Tonio: From Da Top, Only, and a whole lot of other cats, good mix of artists. Incidentally, I've downloaded dozens of mixtapes from allbmorehiphop.com now and this is the first one that's actually all properly tagged (song titles, artist name, album title) when I load it into my iTunes, so congratulations to them on finally getting that together, hopefully they keep it up.

Nummy f/ B. Rich, 100 Grandman, Smash and Comp - "One Night In Baltimore" (mp3)
No idea who Nummy is and LOL @ his name, but it was definitely clever of him to sample a line from "Whoa Now" and get B. Rich himself and a lot of other notable Baltimore MCs together to make it a posse cut, this is kind of a jam.

Labels: 100 Grandman, ALLBMOREHIPHOP.COM, B. Rich, Barnes, Bossman, Comp, DJ Jabril, mixtape/album review, mp3, Mullyman, Ogun, Only, Skarr Akbar, Smash, Tonio

Here's "The Beginning" from Billo's upcoming mixtape Falling Off Into 1st.

Labels: Billo, For The People Entertainment, video

Rapdragons - Ten Stories Hijacked (Ltd Comp)

This is a remix album of tracks from last year's Rapdragons debut album Ten Stories High, and I previously posted an advance track from this a couple months ago. The main record has a remix of all 10 songs from the original album, but if you download it from the Ltd Comp site, there's a 'bonus pack' with 5 more remixes of some of the same songs, and interestingly there's a promise of a 2nd upcoming bonus pack that'll feature a remix picked from submissions sent to the site. It's all kind of a cool idea and I appreciate the collaborative spirit of the whole enterprise, which is in keeping with the upcoming Featuring Baltimore album that Rapdragons are dropping this summer, but I will say that, like the Height With Friends remix album I wrote about a few months ago, I like it more in theory than in practice. Like with the Height record, the appeal of the Rapdragons album for me was really largely in how homemade and DIY it felt, and the sense that the beats and lyrics were all created together as part of one vision, so it's not really the kind of hip hop where taking the a cappellas and throwing it on a new beat necessarily works that well. Plus a lot of the remixers here are from the indie or techno scenes so they're not really trying to make bangers anyway, it's a little more artsy and abstract, even moreso than the original record.

Rapdragons - "Take Her Home (Cex Remix)" (mp3)
As I explained once in an old post here once, Cex is a dude known primarily for making weird glitchy techno records who, briefly about 7-8 years ago, was going pretty hard with his own odd brand of indie hip hop, and made some dope records with Height and Mickey Free (who back then was called Bow'N'Arrow). When I saw that he had a remix on here, I was curious if he'd go back to his old style of hip hop beatmaking, but instead he goes more into his weird dark techno steez, with a 9-minute track full of wild vocal edits and spacey synths. It's technically on the 'bonus pack,' which is a shame because I feel like it'd make a cool statement for this to be part of the proper remix album.

Labels: mixtape/album review, mp3, Rapdragons

I recently sat down with Bossman for an advance listen of his new album, The Re-Up, which will be out on June 8th, and wrote up an extensive track-by-track preview of the album for Splice Today.

Labels: Bossman, Splice Today

OOH f/ Jeneba Suma- "Pink Money" (mp3)
Here's the latest solo single by OOH from Brown F.I.S.H.

Labels: Brown F.I.S.H., mp3

Here's Los's new video "Angel," which has gotten a whole lot of hits on WordStarHipHop.com.

Labels: Los, video

Clinton Sparks f/ DJ Class and Jermaine Dupri - "Favorite DJ" (mp3)
Clinton Sparks and DJ Snake produced the beat, but they're pretty clearly kinda doing a Baltimore club homage here even aside from the DJ Class appearance. Pretty good track, too, although the chorus is kinda bad.

Labels: Baltimore club, DJ Class, mp3

The regrettably named Young Sac has a new single featuring Waka Flocka Flame, "Street Nigga," that was recorded with my friends at Mobtown Studios, and this is the trailer for the upcoming video for the song.

Labels: Mobtown Studios, video

The Get 'Em Mamis - "Over Here" (mp3)
Last week the G.E.M. girls launched their new website, GetEmMamis.Net, and began the campaign for their new mixtape, Pop, Rocks & Soda. The whole thing will be out in June, but every Monday they're debuting songs from it on the site, and the club track "Over Here" is my favorite of the three they've posted so far. The other two kinda beat you over the head with Katy Perry and Black Eyed Peas samples, which I guess isn't that different from when they used to rap over old Madonna and Salt'n'Pepa tracks, but it's just not nearly as cool.

Labels: G.E.M./Tha Plague, mp3

Here's the new video for "Step Aside" by the Doo Dew Kidz featuring Mullyman that's currently on MTV Jams (and I guess would be pretty much the first Baltimore club video to get in rotation there, if I'm not mistaken). It's directed by Gearie "The Grench" Bowman of Sleepin Giant Media, who always does great work, but visually this is really on a whole new level for him. I also love how they mix in a little bit of K.W. Griff's "Pork and Swift" for a little K-Swift tribute at the end.

Labels: Baltimore club, DJ Booman, K-Swift, KW Griff, Mullyman, Pork Chop, Sleepin Giant Media, video

Labels: Dirt Platoon, flyer, Minlus McCracken, Ms. Stress, Tha Profitt

Labels: Always Dope, Brakefast Records, flyer, Los, Red Maple, Under Sound Music

NOE - Gone Till Noevember (DJ 4Five / G14)

NOE has released so many mixtapes in the last year or two, really has been on his grind. But a lot of them overlap in terms of songs, and this one has some of the same songs as Noestradamus, so I kinda decided to just listen to this one and skip that one. Don't know if I picked the better one, but this is really dope, maybe the most consistent NOE tape I've heard to date. It's kinda padded out with a lot of the Jim Jones records he was on, and of course nobody wants to hear Jim Jones rap, but there are a lot of good solo cuts. Even as a freestyle-heavy mixtape I'm not that mad at it, good interesting beat selection. I wouldn't stick my neck out to say NOE is a better rapper than Jay right now, but since Jay just gets worse and worse every year and NOE is steadily improving, I know who I'd rather hear a new record from right now. You can download it at bmorehiphop.com/noe.

NOE - "Boom Bye Bye" (mp3)
It took me a second to recognize this beat, and then I realized that it's a 6-year-old Lloyd Banks song, "Warrior Part 2," that I really loved at the time, and haven't heard in years. I still kinda can't believe Eminem produced it, it's just so much better than most of his other beats. In fact, I wrote about it in the really really early days of Government Names. A while later in the mixtape NOE raps over one of my other favorite 2004 beats, J-Kwon's "Hood Hop."

Labels: ALLBMOREHIPHOP.COM, mixtape/album review, mp3, NOE

A while back I started talking to some folks at WYPR, the Baltimore-based NPR affiliate, about contributing to some of their local music coverage for the station's Maryland Morning program. And the first product of that association is the web exclusive Spring Music Preview, a little 15-minute podcast kind of thing where Lawrence Lanahan and I discuss a bunch of recent and upcoming Baltimore music releases, and play songs by Bossman, Mullyman, Height With Friends, Rapdragons, Thrushes, Kadman and Wye Oak. I have a voice for print the way ugly people have a face for radio, but overall I'm happy with how it came out and was a lot of fun to put together.

Labels: Bossman, Height, Mullyman, Rapdragons, WYPR

from Youve Beenexposed youvebeenexposed123@gmail.com
to ship1ey.al@gmail.com
date Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 7:26 PM
subject Something very interesting

Thought you might want to investigate this. This was already someone's cd cover...how often does skar akbar make covers from other's work?

Which is Real.jpg
111K View Download



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from Al Shipley ship1ey.al@gmail.com
to Youve Beenexposed youvebeenexposed123@gmail.com
date Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 7:29 PM
subject Re: Something very interesting

OH MY GOD, AN INTERNET MIXTAPE COVER APPROPRIATING VISUALS FROM A PRE-EXISTING WORK! I JUST SHIT MY PANTS RIGHT NOW, GOTTA CALL MY EDITOR AND INSIST ON A COVER STORY TO BLOW THIS CONSPIRACY WIDE OPEN.

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from Youve Beenexposed youvebeenexposed123@gmail.com
to Al Shipley ship1ey.al@gmail.com
date Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 7:58 PM
subject Re: Something very interesting

Was that sarcasm sir? Or are you serious? Because passing things off as your own is still stealing.

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from Al Shipley ship1ey.al@gmail.com
to Youve Beenexposed youvebeenexposed123@gmail.com
date Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 8:45 PM
subject Re: Something very interesting

"sir"? is this Beacon?

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from Youve Beenexposed youvebeenexposed123@gmail.com
to Al Shipley ship1ey.al@gmail.com
date Sat, May 1, 2010 at 10:09 AM
subject Re: Something very interesting

I know not of who you speak of sir. My concern is passing the as you called it "pre-existing" artwork as your own (stating that he came up with the concept and the idea) and getting payment for it. Yes it is true it is a mixtape cover. To me it is compared to you writing a review and someone taking that review, changing a few words and claiming it as their own. But I am guessing that you do not see that comparison. Maybe I was wrong in thinking that you were a man of honor and you are as others believe just a biased individual who let's his "friendships" effect his professional opinions.

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from Al Shipley ship1ey.al@gmail.com
to Youve Beenexposed youvebeenexposed123@gmail.com
date Sat, May 1, 2010 at 11:21 AM
subject Re: Something very interesting

LOL "man of honor" -- who talks like that? If you told me who he lifted the artwork from, I'd at least have an idea of whether he was ripping off a peer independent artist or whether he's ripping off something established and mainstream (because if it's the latter case -- you gonna blow the whistle on every mixtape that photoshops a movie poster or a Biggie album cover?), then I'd at least have an idea of the 'level' of his crime, because it's all relative. If he ripped off you or someone you know, then of course you have a right to be mad. If not, what's it to you? And yes, plagiarism is plagiarism, but it is taken a LITTLE more seriously among professional writers than in the world of mixtapes where every other beat is jacked from a major label release.

And even at the absolute most, I don't think I'd do anything more than point it out on my blog and just briefly say hey, that's kind of a dick move, and I don't know what else you'd expect me to do. If anything, you'd be better off contacting the people that paid Skarr for the artwork to see if they want to recall the mixtape and get a refund from him or something. But either way, sneaking around and creating special e-mail accounts just to stir up some little-ass controversy doesn't strike me as the most honorable way of life, so get off your fuckin' high horse.

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from Youve Beenexposed youvebeenexposed123@gmail.com
to Al Shipley ship1ey.al@gmail.com
date Sat, May 1, 2010 at 3:50 PM
subject Re: Something very interesting

LOL It was brought to my attention and I have not a thing to gain from "exposing" Mr. Akbar for him intentionally passing off this artwork as his own. And it is one thing to "jack" artwork from a poster, movie, an industry album cover. It is another thing to "jack" artwork from an independent artist and passing it off as your own! Which in this case he did. He said that he came up with the concept and he did the artwork.

I have no "fuckin high horse" and what's with the hostility? Never once have I used harsh or cruel or vulgarity towards you. But I guess because I choose to be anonymous that really is making you mad. I am not trying to "stir up some little-ass controversy". My intentions were to expose the fact that this Gritty Gang artwork was not the original artwork by the graphic designer as he has clearly made it out to be. But then again Baltimore hip-hop seems to be based on lies and deception.

As for an "honorable way of life" Mr. Shipley, I guess it's more honorable to just say nothing at all. As for the the artist who's cover that really is, I do believe he is being contacted. I, as I have said, was sent the artwork and have no interest in the outcome of the situation. But as for Mr. Akbar my suggestion would be that in the future be may want to be careful because that is bad business.

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from Al Shipley ship1ey.al@gmail.com
to Youve Beenexposed youvebeenexposed123@gmail.com
date Sat, May 1, 2010 at 6:40 PM
subject Re: Something very interesting

You're exactly right that the anonymity is what pisses me off about this and gets me off on a bad foot with you, whoever you are. Anonymous little mystery figures trying to pull my card, or manipulate me into "exposing" people for them, are the bane of my fucking existence. You may already know this, but I had a little problem the last few months with a Government Names commenter who motivated me to start moderating comments on the site, because he thought he could throw dirt on everyone else's name without revealing his own. And that guy says "sir" a lot, which is why I asked what I asked earlier. Once a couple years ago some anonymous person kept trying to drop breadcrumbs to get me to publicize something negative about an artist, and it turned out eventually that it was that artist's salty ex-girlfriend. So you ain't the first, and you won't be the last, but while we're here I may as well explain to you that these kind of tactics don't work. Not on me, probably not on anybody.

Maybe you don't realize this, but approaching me this way is really an insult to me right off the bat. What do you think is the worst case scenario if you sent me that e-mail under your own name? I run to Skarr and say "yo this guy is talking shit about you"? Hip hop is full of shady underhanded shit, and Baltimore is full of shady underhanded shit, so yeah if you put 'em together you're gonna run into some of that. But I have no obligation, ethical or otherwise, to chase down every injustice and print it like some kind of investigative reporter. I just try to keep my bullshit detector on when I'm covering local music and not fall for any of the tricks. I'm friendly with a lot of artists but I don't feel any compulsion to protect them if they fuck up, that's on them. I don't know how much you think Skarr gets paid to make a CD cover, but it's probably not enough to keep me on salary as his personal enforcer. You act like he's the head of a fuckin' crime syndicate and when you tried to blow the whistle I turned out to be a dirty cop working for him. The few times I've tried to critically cover the sneaky shit people pull in this scene, I've ended up down a rabbit hole of shit slinging where nobody's innocent and everybody wants to make the other guy look worse. And for what? To confirm the reading audience's worst assumptions about the scene and give them another reason to ignore the music?

You can play this off like you're some concerned citizen or impartial observer, but the effort you put into preparing the comparison graphic (and still not telling me who was ripped off), and creating a special e-mail address for this goofy caper makes me feel like you think you're Deep Throat meeting Woodward & Bernstein in the parking structure. Subject line "Something very interesting" from username "You've Been Exposed"? It's all just a little dramatic, don't you think?

I just want you to know that if you hit me up, as someone I know or just someone in the scene or nobody of any particular note, whoever you are, I guarantee I would've been friendlier about this. I can't think of anybody I would've dismissed or attacked for pointing this out. But I do not respect the way you did this, and I hope one day you can talk to me as whoever you really are and get off on a better foot.

Labels: "anonymous" people are the scum of the earth

Rome Cee - Tunnel Vision (FreEP)

This free EP (or 'FreEP') by Rome Cee is really a stealth album, in the same sense that B.O.M.B.'s Testers was, fitting about as many songs as you can fit on a record and still plausibly call it an EP (in fact it's got the same number of tracks as Illmatic and only 30 seconds shorter). But what really impresses me about this record is that it doesn't feel like there's a single wasted moment; no intros or outros or skits or choruses that go on forever, just a whole lot of rapping, and Rome Cee is pretty fuckin' nice. It feels a little frontloaded, where the first few tracks outshine the stuff toward the end, but overall it's still pretty strong, all original production, though I'm not sure who did the beats. There's a few guest verses, including one by Kneel Knaris of PX (Parts Unknown), but for the most part it's all Rome Cee's show.

Rome Cee - "The Mask" (mp3)
Here's an example of what I like about this EP: this is the very first song, and dude just hits the ground running, rapping immediately and working in these crazy flow patterns and internal rhymes. You almost never hear a rap record start like that, and I wish it happened more often, it just grabs your attention so much better than some long-ass intro or a bunch of talking.

Labels: mixtape/album review, mp3, PX, Rome Cee

Here's Blaqstarr's new video for "Oh My Darlin'," directed by Baltimore's own Hilton Carter.

Labels: Blaq Starr, video