Here we go, WHOLE LAAAAAT:

11. Diablo - "Jail Flick" (mp3) - August 16, 2005
12. D.O.G. f/ Blaq Starr - "Ryda Gyrl" (mp3) - June 26, 2006
13. Rod Lee - "Dance My Pain Away" (mp3) - June 2, 2005
14. Comp - "Whole Lat" (mp3) - February 13, 2008
15. Mullyman - "Oh Baltimore" (mp3) - May 19, 2006
16. Ogun f/ Che'Rae - "My Life" (mp3) - December 22, 2006
17. Bossman - "Dat Night" (mp3) - February 4, 2005
18. DK - "A Part Of History" (mp3) - March 21, 2006
19. Heavy Gold - "Charm City" (mp3) - February 16, 2006
20. Labtekwon - "Uhnnn Huhnnn" (mp3) - August 29, 2005

Labels: Blaq Starr, Comp, D.O.G., Diablo, DK, Heavy Gold, Labtekwon, lists, mp3, Mullyman, Ogun, Rod Lee

Man, I'm loving that most of the mp3s I've been throwing out for this series of posts have been getting like 30 downloads or more, makes me wonder how many people are actually grabbing every single song they don't already have, which I think would be really awesome. Maybe after it's all over next week people can start leaving comments with what their favorite songs are, which I'd like to see a lot:

31. Diablo - "Round My Hood" (mp3) - March 11, 2006
32. Debonair Samir - "Throw It Up" (mp3) - March 28, 2006
33. Little Clayway - "B-More Hip Hop" (mp3) - April 2, 2006
34. E-Nahledge - "F.W.Y.B." (mp3) - January 23, 2007
35. Paula Campbell f/ Rod Lee and Tim Trees - "How Does It Feel" (mp3) - March 31, 2005
36. Mullyman - "Party Walk" (mp3) - April 26, 2008
37. Raphael Saadiq f/ C.J. Hilton and Stevie Wonder - "Never Give You Up" (mp3) - October 7, 2008
38. N.E.K. - "Face Down (Remix)" (mp3) - June 17, 2005
39. Ogun f/ Jitter B.U.G. and EJ - "Bmore (Remix)" (mp3) - December 24, 2005
40. Born King - "Blue Lights" (mp3) - May 19, 2006

Labels: Baltimore club, Born King, CJ Hilton, Debonair Samir, Diablo, lists, Little Clayway, mp3, Mullyman, Ogun, Paula Campbell, Rod Lee, Tim Trees

Some stray news items and links:

- Above is a new YouTube interview with Blaq Starr.

- Illroots.com has recently ran posts about PenDragon and Mania Music Group's Ron G.

- On my other blog Narrowcast, I listed the best shows I saw in 2008, which included performances by Soul Cannon, K-Swift, Blaq Starr, Dru Hill, Diablo, Rod Lee, Mullyman, Skarr Akbar, Comp, Little Clayway, Teop, Heavy Gold, 1st Family and Huli Shallone.

- Recent reviews by some of my colleagues at the City Paper: Brandon Soderberg on Blaq Starr, Bret McCabe on Ms. Stress, and Michael Byrne on DJ Excel.

- Some other stuff by Brandon Soderberg: a No Trivia post about Scottie B., and a Fresh Cherries From Yakima post about songs by Midas, the Chavy Boys, DJ Excel, E Major, B.O.M.B., DJ Booman, Ray Lugar, Mullyman, and Ron Rico.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore club, Blaq Starr, Diablo, DJ Excel, Dru Hill, K-Swift, Mania Music Group, Midas, Ms. Stress, Mullyman, PenDragon, Ron G., Scottie B., Soul Cannon, Teop

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

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

Labels: Diablo, Dirty Hartz, flyer, G.E.M./Tha Plague, Mullyman, Ogun, The Wire

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

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

Labels: Baltimore club, Diablo, flyer, Rod Lee, The Wire

various artists - Beyond Hamsterdam: Baltimore Tracks from The Wire (Nonesuch Records)

You already know what it is. I've been hyping up this album, and its companion piece, The Wire: " … and all the pieces matter", and updating you every step of the way from the original announcement to the official tracklist to my in-depth City Paper feature on the album. I posted a lot of these tracks on this blog when they were first released on local mixtapes, including all-time favorites like "Dance My Pain Away" and "Jail Flick" and "That's Da Sound" that I consider some of the best records to come out of Baltimore in recent years. In fact my only real complaint about this album is that it's too short. But the fact that Blake and The Wire's people made this a special release in addition to the regular soundtrack is more than I ever would've asked for or expected (plus, as I've said before, I'm thanked in the liner notes, which is awesome and a big deal to me). It's been out since Tuesday, and if you haven't bought it already, buy it this week. Although, if you only buy one of these 2 CDs, I might say buy the other one, since it has more music, a nicer package, and it has a better chance of charting on Billboard next week (right now at #73 on Amazon's music sales chart and climbing).

Ogun f/ Phathead - "What You Know About Baltimore" (mp3)
This track appeared on Hamsterdam Vol. 2 and I believe is due to appear in one of the episodes in the 5th season of the show, but I've never posted it here before. Great low key track, really honest about the city's situation but also determined to make it better, a theme that's always run through Ogun's lyrics, and I'm really glad they got him involved in the project, since I think of him as kind of the epitome of a hard working underground Baltimore MC.

Labels: Baltimore club, Bossman, Darkroom Productions, Diablo, Dirty Hartz, DJ Technics, G.E.M./Tha Plague, mixtape/album review, mp3, Mullyman, Ogun, One Up Entertainment, Rod Lee, The Wire, Tyree Colion

At the beginning of the past two years, I've posted lists of my most anticipated Baltimore hip hop releases for the coming year. Inevitably, those lists were full of the best known local MCs, some of them signed to major labels, and inevitably most of those albums (in the case of last year's list, 9 out of 10) never dropped. So while I'm looking forward to independent national releases by Darkroom Productions and 410 Pharoahs in the next few months, and I'd be hyped as hell about a D.O.G. album on Universal or a Los album on Bad Boy or a Heavy Gold album on Epic being released this year, I ain't holding my breath. Instead, this list is my 20 most anticipated Baltimore MCs who I've never heard a solo project by. I might've heard them as a member of a group, or doing guest appearances, or seen them live or heard a single, or songs on their MySpace page. Some of them might already be pretty well known within the scene, or even have a solo album that I just didn't know about. But these are the people I want to hear more from in 2008, whether or not they have anything scheduled to drop:

1. Verb
2. Symantyx
3. Sonny Brown
4. Diablo
5. Sean-Toure'
6. EJ
7. Greenspan
8. Shakean Da Analyst
9. Tonio
10. XO
11. Ammo
12. Gata Shiest
13. E-Nahledge
14. Young R.O.D.
15. ONLY
16. Tony Manson
17. Street Heat
18. Dave "Da Barber"
19. Reina Williams
20. Maniak Dre

Labels: Diablo, Dirty Hartz, E-Nahledge, Kartel, lists, M.O.L., Sonny Brown, XO

This week in the Baltimore City Paper, I wrote a feature about Beyond Hamsterdam: Baltimore Tracks From The Wire, one of the two official soundtrack albums out next week. For the article, I spoke to some of the musicians featured on the CD, including Juan Donovan from Darkroom Productions, Mullyman, Ogun and Diablo, and ran down the whole album track by track, which also includes Rod Lee, DJ Technics, Bossman, Dirty Hartz, Tyree Colion and The Get 'Em Mamis.

There's going to be a release party event in New York this Friday with some of the artists on the album (plus D.O.G.), I'm still debating whether to make a road trip up to NYC for it this weekend. And both of The Wire's soundtrack CDs will be in stores next Tuesday, January 8th, two days after the season 5 premiere. I don't usually push hard for people to go out and purchase records that I write about. But seriously, the 6th is my birthday, and I don't want you to get me anything, just buy this CD. I already have promo copies of both and I'm still gonna go buy 'em, since I haven't seen the whole package with the liner notes and everything. The Amazon.com sales rank for The Wire: And All The Pieces Matter just for pre-orders has been climbing steadily, and I'd be really thrilled if it could make a respectable showing on the Billboard 200 during a slow post-Christmas sales week. I don't know about any particular soundtrack release parties or in-store events going on here in Baltimore, but if there are any please let me know so I can promote those, too.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore club, D.O.G., Darkroom Productions, Debonair Samir, Diablo, Dirty Hartz, flyer, magazines/newspapers, Mullyman, Ogun, The Wire

I'd never heard of the Baltimore-based publication Gutter Magazine before, but recently Sam gave me a heads up that in their current issue they give a really nice shoutout to Gov't Names (haha, "sweet bloggy"). And I gotta give them props, too, they've definitely got a voice and a viewpoint, and aren't afraid to point out the good and the bad in Baltimore media. And there's a good Diablo interview in that issue, too, about working with Darkroom Productions and doing music for "The Wire" and everything.

Labels: Darkroom Productions, Diablo, magazines/newspapers, The Wire

Props to Nah Right for posting about The Wire soundtrack, feels good to see people up on it, especially pretty much the biggest rap blog in the game. There's a lot of chatter about Baltimore rap in the comments, some good and some bad, from the usual Nah Right fruitflies (shout out to D. Billz, though, I've exchanged some e-mails with him and he's a good dude). The post also has an mp3 of Diablo's "Jail Flick" in the post, but you might already have that from when I posted it, oh, two years and four months ago.

Labels: Darkroom Productions, Diablo, The Wire

Last month I posted the announcement about the official soundtrack album to HBO's The Wire. And this week I got an update from Blake Leyh, who gave me some really exciting details, including the fact that apparently my name will be mentioned in the liner notes. He pointed me toward the Nonesuch Records site, which has tracklists for two different soundtrack albums that are being released at the beginning of the show's 5th season. Here's the deal: one CD is the straight-up soundtrack, featuring the various versions of the theme song "Way Down In The Hole," the end credits music, dialogue clips from the show, and a wide range of music used in the show, including several tracks by local Baltimore artists. The other CD is strictly Baltimore music, with all the tracks by local artists from the proper soundtrack (including the version of "Way Down In The Hole" by Maryland's DoJaMe), plus a few more to fill out the rest of the CD. Both soundtracks are being released simultaneously on January 8th, promoted jointly with equally large initial pressings. It was already going to be a big deal for this scene, but now I really feel like it's becoming an event, the biggest national release by exclusively Baltimore artists in a long time. I hope everyone who loves the show or cares about any of this music goes out next month and buys one or both of these CDs and really supports this project, I think it's going to be great, every artist involved should really make the most of this exposure, maybe make videos for some of these songs, get some of their own records out early in the year. I think there's going to be some events in New York and Baltimore the week of the release, no solid info yet. Anyway, here are the tracklists:



The Wire: " … and all the pieces matter"

“This America, man.” 0:24
WAY DOWN IN THE HOLE – The Blind Boys of Alabama 2:54
“Why would anyone ever wanna leave Baltimore?” 0:21
OH MY GOD – Michael Franti & Spearhead 5:05
DANCE MY PAIN AWAY – Rod Lee 2:07
MY LIFE EXTRA - DJ Technics 1:17
“The king stay the king.” 0:48
WAY DOWN IN THE HOLE – The Neville Brothers 1:36
“We used to make shit in this country.” 0:15
SIXTEEN TONS – The Nighthawks 3:36
ASSUME THE POSITION – Lafayette Gilchrist 2:42
“What the fuck did I do?” 0:12
STEP BY STEP – Jesse Winchester 2:56
I WALK ON GILDED SPLINTERS – Paul Weller 4:58
FAST TRAIN – Solomon Burke 5:37
THE BODY OF AN AMERICAN – The Pogues 4:45
“All the pieces matter.” 0:08
EFUGE EFUGE – Stelios Kazantzidis 3:32
“Omar comin’!” 0:40
WAY DOWN IN THE HOLE - Domaje 1:43
“If it’s a lie, then we fight on that lie” 0:22
PROJECTS – Tyree Colion 3:26
“Later for that gangsta bullshit.” 0:38
AYO - Bossman (3:20
ANALYZE - Sharpshooters 2:44
“Wars end.” 0:20
UNFRIENDLY GAME – Masta Ace Feat. Stricklin 3:52
WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT BALTIMORE – Ogun Feat. Phathead 3:16
JAIL FLICK - Diablo 3:38
THE LIFE, THE HOOD, THE STREETZ - Mullyman 3:47
“An act of daily journalism.” 0:07
I FEEL ALRIGHT – Steve Earle 2:58
WAY DOWN IN THE HOLE – Tom Waits 1:45
“You remember that one day summer past?” 0:41
THE FALL – Blake Leyh 1:24



Beyond Hamsterdam: Baltimore Tracks from The Wire

WAY DOWN IN THE HOLE – DoMaJe 1:46
PROJECTS - Tyree Colion 4:33
DANCE MY PAIN AWAY - Rod Lee 2:52
MY LIFE EXTRA - DJ Technics 2:39
WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT BALTIMORE - Ogun feat. Phathead 3:59
JAIL FLICK – Diablo 4:07
WHEN YOU SEE US - The Get ‘em Mamis feat. L. Cash 4:06
THAT’S DA SOUND - Dirty Hartz feat. Verb 3:56
AYO – Bossman 3:52
THE LIFE, THE HOOD, THE STREETZ – Mullyman 4:44
ASSUME THE POSITION - Lafayette Gilchrist 6:32

Labels: Baltimore club, Bossman, Darkroom Productions, Debonair Samir, Diablo, Dirty Hartz, DJ Technics, G.E.M./Tha Plague, Mullyman, Ogun, Rod Lee, The Wire, Tyree Colion

This is big big news that I've known was coming for a while now, and it was torture keeping it under wraps. I'd been in contact with Blake Leyh since earlier this year, and a couple months ago he told me they'd made a deal to release a soundtrack. I've written a lot about The Wire's use of music by Baltimore artists before, so this is a big deal to me. Check out the full announcements from Blake and Nonesuch Records below, with details on who will be on the soundtrack (including Mullyman, Ogun, Diablo, Tyree Colion and Rod Lee) [EDIT: Blake says in the comments that Bossman is also included on the CD]:

Greetings, Wire Fans...

After years of anticipation, The Wire Soundtrack will finally be released on January 8th, 2008, on Nonesuch Records. We are currently in the very final stages of production of the record, and I can say without reservation that the project is everything I always hoped it would be. It turns out David Bither and Bob Hurwitz at Nonesuch are huge Wire fans, and they have given us incredible support and creative
freedom to do the record the right way. It includes many of the show's most important musical signatures, including several versions of Way Down In The Hole, all of the season-end montage songs, a great selection of Baltimore club and hip-hop, The Pogues, Stelios Kazantzidis, a selection of dialog scenes from the show, and the theme music "The Fall" which I composed and so many have asked for over the years. It also includes a gigantic deluxe booklet stuffed with photographs, and liner notes by David Simon, George Pelecanos and Jeff Chang.

I will post more details and a full track list in the near future on my blog, The Ten Thousand Things. Until then there's a bit more info at the Nonesuch blog here:

http://journal.nonesuch.com/journal/2007/11/nonesuch-to-rel.html

I wanted to send this out directly, as so many people have asked me for information about the music over the last few years. And in case you were wondering, Season 5 is finished and continues the tradition we have all come to expect from The Wire; the season premiere will be Sunday January 6th.

Here's looking forward to January!

Cheers,

Blake Leyh
Music Supervisor, The Wire

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
blake@blakeleyh.com
www.blakeleyh.com
www.tenthousand.org

And here is the announcement on the Nonesuch site:

Nonesuch to Release Music from Five Years of "The Wire"

Nonesuch is pleased to announce the January 8, 2008, release of the first soundtrack from the critically acclaimed, Peabody Award–winning HBO series The Wire. That's two days after the series kicks off its fifth season. It also marks the first time music from the David Simon–created show has ever been collected and released as an album.

The Wire: " ... and all the pieces matter" will include several versions of the show’s opening theme song—Tom Waits’s “Way Down in the Hole”—as performed by The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Neville Brothers, and DoMaJe, a group of Baltimore teenagers. To listen to DoMaJe's take on the song, click here.

The disc will also feature a number of tracks from the Baltimore club and hip-hop scene that have never appeared on a major label release, including Rod Lee’s “Dance My Pain Away,” Tyree Colion’s “Projects,” Diablo’s “Jail Flick,” Mullyman’s “The Life, the Hood, the Streetz,” and “What You Know About Baltimore?” by Ogun featuring Phathead.

Other songs include “Oh My God” by Michael Franti, “I Walk on Gilded Splinters” by Paul Weller, “The Body of an American” by The Pogues, “I Feel Alright” by Steve Earle (who also has an acting role on the series), Solomon Burke’s “Fast Train,” and the show’s closing theme, “The Fall,” composed by The Wire music supervisor Blake Leyh.

Some of the most memorable dialog from the program’s five years will also be included on the record. The CD booklet will feature essays by the author and series writer George Pelecanos and the noted hip-hop journalist Jeff Chang.

Over the course of four seasons, The Wire has developed a portrait of Baltimore through the themes of education, the war on drugs, the decline of the working class, and the role of political leadership in addressing urban problems. The Wire will use its fifth and final season to examine mass media’s impact on the city.

Slate has had this to say about the series:

... surely the best TV show ever broadcast in America ... No other program has ever done anything remotely like what this one does, namely to portray the social, political, and economic life of an American city with the scope, observational precision, and moral vision of great literature.

The first three seasons of The Wire are currently available on DVD; the fourth season will be available beginning December 4, 2007—a month before the fifth and final season’s premiere on HBO. You can pre-order Season Four now at the Shop at HBO.com.

For more information on the series, visit HBO.com.

Labels: Baltimore club, Bossman, Darkroom Productions, Diablo, Mullyman, Ogun, Rod Lee, The Wire, Tyree Colion

Labels: B.O.M.B., Bigg Patch, Diablo, flyer, G.E.M./Tha Plague, M.O.L., Mullyman, Ogun, Skarr Akbar, Unruly Records

Briefly: a reminder to go check out http://noise.citypaper.com, where in the past month I've written about Baltimore club music (the latest Club Beat column featuring an interview with Scottie B.), Baltimore rap music (a post about videos on YouTube by Diablo, Mullyman, PenDragon, Comp, Labtekwon, B. Rich, and Bossman), and Baltimore rock music (live reviews of Private Eleanor, Vinny Vegas/Deleted Scenes/Savory James, and
Karmella's Game/Avec/Endless Mike and the Beagle Club/Velociraptor). Trying to keep it locally focused but with a lot of variety.

Labels: B. Rich, Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore club, Bossman, Comp, Diablo, Labtekwon, Mullyman, Noise, Scottie B.

Darkroom Productions presents... Hamsterdam Vol. 2 - Stash To Da Strip (Darkroom Inc.)

Darkroom Productions has been talking this up practically since the first Hamsterdam dropped and it always seemed right around the corner, all the way from before the 4th season of The Wire with their music in it ran its course til afterwards, but a couple weeks ago it finally dropped. And honestly, as press savvy as they are (with features in XLR8R and the Baltimore Sun just recently), I was always a little skeptical that they'd top the first one and live up to all the hype. And when they said it was a double CD, at first I thought they meant including the Harm City Exposed DVD that was going to be packaged with the mixtape, but the DVD got pushed back (it's now available on their MySpace page and hits the streets next week), and it turns out that there are two whole CD's of music, with over 30 original beats. And I gotta say, they really stepped up the beats and expanded their production pallette with some new sounds, good shit. A lot of the artists from the original Hamsterdam (Mullyman, Diablo, Tyree Colion, Bigg Patch, M.O.L., Ogun)came back for this one, along with a number of Bmore artists that weren't on the last one (NOE, Shakean Da Analyst, D.O.G., Barnes, Golden Seal, XO) and a few out of town cats (Maino, Sqad Up). Several tracks from the mixtape are streaming on the Darkroom and Diablo MySpace pages, and it's being sold on the Darkroom page.

NOE - "The Baltimore Way" (mp3)
Nice use of a sample of Christopher Walken from The King Of New York to set this track off. You might remember that NOE is the Baltimore cat that Jim Jones signed to the Diplomats that I posted about a year ago. The song I posted, "City Boyz," even ended up on an official Diplomats release (although, unfortunately, it was A Dipset Xmas). This is probably my favorite track that I've heard him on so far, but then, I still haven't heard his mixtape that dropped last year. Still sounds a little like Jay-Z but has his own flow and his own style to set him apart.

Labels: Barnes, Bigg Patch, D.O.G., Darkroom Productions, Diablo, Golden Seal, M.O.L., mixtape/album review, mp3, Mullyman, NOE, Ogun, The Wire, Tyree Colion, XO

The new issue of XLR8R magazine is out with an article about Baltimore hip hop, spotlighting Darkroom Productions, Diablo, Tyree Colion, Ogun and Mullyman. You can click the pic for a larger version to read the article. I just got Hamsterdam 2 but I'm still digesting it, only listened to the first disc, but so far it's pretty damn good. In stores now.

Labels: Darkroom Productions, Diablo, magazines/newspapers, Mullyman, Ogun, Tyree Colion