Here's "Kush," a video by NOE's new supergroup the Baltimore Bangahz, which also includes Huli Shallone, Lano, Rico, D'Nero, Ryda Rook and Big Chuck da Hustla.

Labels: Huli Shallone, NOE, video

This is Huli Shallone's video "E Pill Poppin'," directed by Tha Profitt.

Labels: Huli Shallone, Tha Profitt, video

Labels: Black Hole Rock Club, flyer, Huli Shallone, Los, Tha Profitt

Huli Shallone - "She Call" (mp3)
Here's a new club track from Huli produced by the Pornstars.

Labels: Huli Shallone, mp3

Labels: Black Hole Rock Club, flyer, Huli Shallone, NOE, Ogun, Tha Profitt

Some live reviews I've had on the City Paper's Noise blog lately: Comp/Skarr Akbar/Huli Shallone/Dreko @ the Black Hole Rock Club, Lynee' Michelle @ 5 Seasons, the High Zero Festival's Saturday night concert, and Big In Japan @ the Windup Space.

Labels: 5 Seasons, Baltimore City Paper, Black Hole Rock Club, Comp, Dreko, Huli Shallone, Lynee Michelle, Noise, Skarr Akbar

Labels: 1st Family, Black Hole Rock Club, Comp, flyer, Huli Shallone, Smash, Tha Profitt

This week WWW.ALLBMOREHIPHOP.COM, a site put together by the folks at Architects Recording Studio, launched and they've got a whole bunch of free downloads of full-length albums and mixtapes by artists including Ogun, Skarr Akbar, Bossman, TestMe, Barnes, Huli Shallone, UnReal, D.O.G., ShellBe R.A.W., EJ, Rye Rye and many others. I think it's great that there's gonna be a site like this from now on, and from Ogun's told me they've got a lot more stuff planned.

Labels: ALLBMOREHIPHOP.COM, announcements, Architects, Barnes, Bossman, D.O.G., EJ, Huli Shallone, Ogun, Rye Rye, ShellBe RAW, Skarr Akbar, TestMe, UnReal

Labels: 5 Seasons, flyer, Huli Shallone, Ogun

And the hits just keep coming! Or really, songs that for the most part were hits in my mind only, or for a relatively small group of people. I surprised myself, though, when I looked at the whole 100 and realized that almost half the songs were things that had been played on 92Q at some point or another. Mostly club songs, but still, it's nice to think that many songs I've genuinely liked have impacted the station's airwaves, as much flak as people give the station about local artist airplay:

41. The Arabz - "Alright" (mp3) - January 15, 2006
42. C.R. - "Know You Better" (mp3) - June 16, 2006
43. K.W. Griff - "Tony Track" (mp3) - July 6, 2006
44. Golden Seal f/ Ooh of Brown F.I.S.H. - "Sistahs Pimpin'" (mp3) - July 13, 2006
45. Labtekwon - "Dr. Strangelove" (mp3) - July 20, 2006
46. Huli Shallone - "This My Hood" (mp3) - March 15, 2005
47. Davon f/ Tim Trees - "Be Ya Friend" (mp3) - July 27, 2005
48. B. Rich - "Whoa Now (Bmore Version)" (mp3) - July 25, 2006
49. Dirt Platoon - "Movin'" (mp3) - August 7, 2006
50. Mania Music Group - "Lunatic Fringe" (mp3) - November 13, 2008

Labels: B. Rich, Baltimore club, Brown F.I.S.H., Dirt Platoon, Golden Seal, Huli Shallone, KW Griff, Labtekwon, lists, Mania Music Group, mp3, Tim Trees

Note: this show has been cancelled and will be rescheduled later in the year.

Labels: Club Reality, flyer, Huli Shallone, Tha Profitt

On this day in 2004, I threw up the first test post on this site. At the time, music was still a pretty tiny piece of the blogosphere and it seemed like you could count all the existing rap blogs on your fingers. So when I finished exams at the end of that semester and had some free time on my hands, I started up this little page with some friends and message board acquaintances whose writing I liked just to have a space to talk about new songs and stuff that interested us. It started out with no real focus, and for the first year or so Government Names was probably known mainly for the weird Canadian kid who had a ridiculous amount of knowledge about Houston hip hop more than anything I did. But I posted about some Baltimore stuff from the very beginning, and as my interest in covering this underexposed scene grew and the other contributors gradually stopped posting, I decided to make that the site's sole focus, and it's been really rewarding and fun. This site got me bank into freelancing as a music critic after being away from it for a few years and gave me a whole new passion for it, and I've met a lot of cool people and heard some great music and hopefully introduced some people to some songs they loved.

Over the past 5 years, I've posted roughly 700 songs, but I've always prided myself on the fact that I try to be selective and find the best tracks to share, or ones that I have something to say about, especially now in the age where the 'best' rap blogs are usually the ones that indiscriminately throw up every new song without writing anything about it or even listening to it first. If someone sends me a single or a leak, I usually only post it if I genuinely like the song, and when I'm writing about a full-length I try to post my favorite song from it (although sometimes even the best song off a CD isn't very good, but hey). So I feel good about a really large percentage of the music I've posted, and wanted to kind of highlight what I think was the best of the best. So to mark the anniversary, I'll be re-posting my top 100 mp3s from the site's first 5 years over the next couple weeks, 10 at a time every day or so, with links to the original posts they appeared in. All due respect to the musicians, I can't thank them enough for making songs that I want to listen to and tell people about on a daily basis. Here's the first installment:

91. Labtekwon - "Soybeans and Tofu Cheese" (mp3) - October 8, 2006
92. James Nasty - "You So Hawt" (mp3) - April 30, 2008
93. Mullyman f/ Backland, Comp and Sonny Brown - "Gangsta Wit Me" (mp3) - August 12, 2005
94. Caleb & Saleem - "We Write Blue" (mp3) - March 12, 2009
95. Mania Music Group - "Gotta Believe It" freestyle (mp3) - April 21, 2009
96. Blaq Starr - "In The Air" (mp3) - March 1, 2007
97. Bossman - "You're Wrong" (mp3) - August 24, 2006
98. Mike Malachi f/ Ron Rico, Agg and Skarr Akbar - "Super Smash Bros. Melee" (mp3) - March 21, 2009
99. Caddy Da Don f/ Tim Trees, Huli Shallone, Los, Skarr Akbar and Bossman - "Whole City Behind Me (Remix)" (mp3) - November 4, 2007
100. Scola f/ Rod Lee - "Turn It Down" (mp3) - August 3, 2006

Labels: Backland, Baltimore club, Blaq Starr, Bossman, Comp, Huli Shallone, Labtekwon, lists, Los, Mania Music Group, Mike Malachi, mp3, Mullyman, Ron Rico, Saleem, Sonny Brown, Tim Trees

My latest live reviews on the City Paper's Noise blog have been: Tha Profitt/Skarr Akbar/Ogun/Comp/Shy/Hots @ Black Hole Rock Club, 1st Family/Bossman/Huli Shallone @ Black Hole Rock Club, Mania Music Group/Jade Fox/Wordsmith/Minlus & McCracken @ the Quarter, Impossible Hair/The Caribbean @ the Black Cat, and Asobi Seksu/Thrushes @ the Ottobar.

Labels: 1st Family, Baltimore City Paper, Black Hole Rock Club, Bossman, Comp, Hots, Huli Shallone, Jade Fox, Mania Music Group, Minlus McCracken, Noise, Ogun, Skarr Akbar, Tha Profitt, Wordsmith

Shy Lady Heroin - Queen Of The Streets (Money In Da Bank Ent.)

Shy Lady Heroin is a female MC that's in Go Hard Clik and on B.O.M.B.'s Money In Da Banke Ent. label, and she won the first 'Queen Of The Mic' competition at Sonar last year. I've seen her live a couple times lately, and the last time I saw her at the Black Hole she gave me this new mixtape, which is kind of a quick little 35-minute release, and has most of the songs she usually performs. She's definitely got some lyrics, but I dunno, her delivery gets a little bland and monotonous to me, like she's doing all this bragging and talking shit but I don't really hear it in her voice, she almost sounds too nice, y'know? There's a ton of drops on here of various local folks co-signing her, to the point that at the end there's just a bunch left over that play all in a row, from Ogun, Shaka Pitts, Stevie Stay Hi, Huli Shallone, Comp, etc.

Shy Lady Heroin - "The Finer Things" (mp3)
This song knocks, love that beat.

Labels: B.O.M.B., Comp, Huli Shallone, mixtape/album review, mp3, Ogun, Shaka Pitts

Labels: B.O.M.B., Black Hole Rock Club, Brown F.I.S.H., Comp, flyer, Heavy Gold, Hots, Huli Shallone, Ogun, Savage Da Beast, Skarr Akbar, Tha Profitt

Labels: Black Hole Rock Club, Bossman, Comp, flyer, Huli Shallone, Mullyman, Smash, TestMe, Verb

Labels: 5 Seasons, DJ Booman, flyer, Huli Shallone, Team Fifty

Labels: D.O.G., flyer, Huli Shallone, Paula Campbell, Skarr Akbar, Tim Trees

Labels: flyer, Huli Shallone, NOE

In the past month I've finally started occasionally taking photos to accompany some of my posts on the City Paper's Noise blog at http://noise.citypaper.com (with asterisks next to posts that include pictures by me). My latest posts included: The Club Beat with Dirty Nation Entertainment, Teop with Mullyman (pictured above), Comp, Skarr Akbar, Little Clayway, Huli Shallone, Heavy Gold, Al Great, SL Danga and 1st Family @ Sonar*, 2 Time Quitters, Raspberry Campaign and Engine @ the Ottobar*, Pearl Jam and Ted Leo @ the Verizon Center, and "Weird Al" Yankovic @ Pier Six Pavilion. I also spent last weekend doing a lot of festival coverage: night 1 of Whartscape with Matmos, Nautical Almanac, Ultimate Reality, Mark Hosler of Negativland, Leprechaun Catering, Blue Leader, Ben Heresey and Missoula Oblongata @ the Charles Theatre and Artscape with Dru Hill, Mario, Joan Jett, Mike Doughty, the Oranges Band, Blaq Starr, and what would end being the last time I'd get to see DJ K-Swift (R.I.P.) spin.

(photo by Al Shipley)

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore club, Blaq Starr, Comp, Dru Hill, Heavy Gold, Huli Shallone, K-Swift, Little Clayway, magazines/newspapers, Mullyman, Noise, Ottobar, Skarr Akbar, Sonar, Teop