I wrote a post on the Noise blog about "Hometown," the great new Dukeyman-produced single by OOH from Brown F.I.S.H., from his upcoming solo EP The Big 7.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, Brown F.I.S.H., Dukeyman, Noise

Young Crip - “Get Your Bread Up” (mp3)
You probably remember Young Crip from Smash’s big single “Bit Too Much For Me” a couple years ago, but this is the first time I’ve heard a solo track from him, and it’s pretty dope, from the soundtrack of Diamond K’s upcoming movie Who Shot Ya. The track’s produced by Dukeyman, who’s always had a knack for taking a sample that you might not think would make a dope rap song and going hard with it.

Labels: Diamond K, Dukeyman, mp3

It’s been about a week since I announced Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music and launched the official website, and I just wanted to put together a quick update of some things going on related to the project:

- The new issue of Words.Beats.Life: The Global Journal of Hip Hop Culture has just been published, and features an article I wrote about Baltimore club music. The Washington, D.C.-based peer-reviewed academic periodical asked me a while back to contribute to its Sex Issue, and the piece I wrote is titled “Sex In This Club: Gender And Sexuality in Baltimore Club Music.” It touches on the sexually explicit nature of Baltimore club lyrics, gender dynamics in the club community, and the role that female and gay musicians have played in the scene over the years, focusing on the late Khia “Club Queen K-Swift” Edgerton and the late Anthony “Miss Tony” Boston. The piece also features previously unpublished quotes from my personal interview archive from people like Ron “Dukeyman” Hall, 2 Hyped Brothers & A Dog producer Al “T” McLaran, and Club Queen Entertainment staffers Buck Jones, Lady Pitbull and Crystal Tennessee. Although the article, like my other freelance works, won’t appear in Tough Breaks, it can be considered something of a preview of one of the topics that will be explored further in the book. More information on Words. Beats. Life and how to pick up a copy of the new issue is available at http://www.wblinc.org.

- Baltimore club veteran DJ Booman and I recently taped a segment as guests of Baltimore public radio station WYPR 88.1FM, which will air next Monday, June 7th on Maryland Morning. In the 10-15 minute segment, WYPR’s Tom Hall interviews Booman and I about the early days of Baltimore club music and we get a bit into the history and the culture of the scene and the music, and Booman produced a special track for the occasion that should be fun for everyone to hear. The piece will air between 9:30 and 10am on Monday morning, but should also be available to stream on the WYPR site, http://www.wypr.org.

- The page for Tough Breaks on fundraising website Kickstarter.com has gotten off to a great start since its launch last week. In its first 7 days, the project has raised over $1,400 towards its $5,000 goal. There's almost a month between now and the July 1st deadline, but there's a lot still left to raise, and I hope anyone who hasn't already is considering even a small pledge, because if we don't reach the goal by then, none of the donations go through.

- The Tough Breaks announcement has been posted on a number of sites and blogs, including Unruly Records, Baltimore-Club.com, My Baltimore Diary and D.C. Mumbo Sauce, in addition to countless Twitter and Facebook postings. Thank you to everyone, please keep spreading the word!

Labels: announcements, Baltimore club, Buck Jones, Dukeyman, K-Swift, My Baltimore Diary, Tough Breaks, Unruly Records, WYPR

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

OOH - "Brotha On The Run" (mp3)
Here's a new Dukeyman-produced solo track by OOH from Brown F.I.S.H. that you might enjoy if you checked out the last one from OOH that I posted a couple months ago. Also, Brown F.I.S.H. is playing at the Windup Space this Saturday.

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