I wrote about Mullyman and DJ Booman's Prince-sampling Ravens anthem "Purple Reign" on the Baltimore City Paper's Noise blog.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, DJ Booman, Mullyman, Noise

I contributed to the Baltimore City Paper's annual Top Ten issue as usual this year. In The Year In Music I wrote blurbs for Mullyman, White Life and Celebration. I was also one of the many voters for The Year In Music, although I wrote no blurbs and the only album I voted for that made the top 10 was Beyonce (my ballot as submitted on the CP site is slightly different from the 'final' top albums of the year list I finished posting on my blog a couple weeks later, since I'm always making last minute changes to those things).

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, lists, magazines/newspapers, Mullyman

Mullyman - Mullyman Vs. The Machine (DJ Whoo Kid/Shadyville/Major League Unlimited)

This blog's definitely been too dormant lately and there've been a lot of good mixtapes I need to catch up on and cover here, but first off I should definitely touch on Mully's latest mixtape, which was hosted by DJ Whoo Kid and has really gotten his buzz up to a new level it's never been at before. Cool thing about this is that it's not even a freestyle mixtape, lot of original beats by DJ Booman and MBAHlievable, with only one or two songs recycled from previous releases, so it's almost like a whole new album less than a year after Harder Than Baltimore. You can download it at Mullyman.com.

Mullyman - "Star Wars" (mp3)
This one really jumped out at me as a favorite right away, along with "Greatness" and "Show Da World."

Labels: DJ Booman, mixtape/album review, mp3, Mullyman

On my other blog, Narrowcast, I posted a list of The Top 25 Concerts I Saw In 2010, and it included 3 very different Baltimore hip hop shows that I reviewed for the Baltimore City Paper's Noise blog in the top 10:

* Bossman, Mullyman, Skarr Akbar, 100 Grandman, TestMe & Smash @ the Black Hole Rock Club, March 17
* Soul Cannon, Mania Music Group & The Get Em Mamis @ the Windup Space, July 3
* Rap Round Robin with Mickey Free, PT Burnem, Rapdragons, Height With Friends & AK Slaughter @ Floristree, August 7

I'm way late on finishing my list of favorite Baltimore hip hop albums & mixtapes of 2010, but hopefully I'll get that up in another week or two.

Labels: AK Slaughter, Black Hole Rock Club, Bossman, G.E.M./Tha Plague, Height, lists, Mania Music Group, Mickey Free, Mullyman, Noise, P.T. Burnem, Rapdragons, Skarr Akbar, Soul Cannon

Mullyman - "Black And Purple (wiRemix)" (mp3)
It's funny, I was just griping to some friends recently that I don't really understand the hype about Wiz Khalifa and that I don't like his single "Black And Yellow," and then Mully took the beat and did something with it that I enjoy a little more, and flipped it from a Steelers anthem to a Ravens anthem.

Labels: mp3, Mullyman

This week Mullyman has a video interview and freestyle on the XXL website.

Labels: magazines/newspapers, Mullyman

CR DaShow - Mars (DJ Supa)

CR DaShow, formerly just CR, is a Baltimore-based R&B singer who's been kicking around the city for the last few years, had some songs on 92Q. has a pretty smooth voice and is versatile, does mostly real contemporary sounding stuff but you can tell he can kick it old school with some soul in there too. He's also involved in the Baltimore hip hop scene and has collaborated with a lot of rappers, sang on a couple tracks on the latest Mullyman album, and he appears on CR's new mixtape, as do Bossman and April Love. It's mostly kinda freestyles over industry beats, but I kinda like when R&B singers do that, since usually they use rap songs and have to come up with their own vocal melodies, so it's not as boring as when rappers just jack other rappers' flows on freestyles. You can download Mars on allbmorehiphop.com.

CR DaShow f/ AD - "Put Me On" (mp3)
This track's over the beat from Tribe's "Bonita Applebaum." But the original song the drum break is from is Little Feat's "Fool Yourself," and the drummer, Richie Hayward, passed away last month and I wrote a piece about him on my other blog, Narrowcast.

Labels: ALLBMOREHIPHOP.COM, Bossman, mp3, Mullyman, RnB

The video for DJ Gemini’s “D.M.V. Dream Team” featuring Mullyman, Bossman, Skarr Akbar, Smash, DC Don Juan, Gerreddi, Whitefolkz, and Kingpen Slim is finally online. There was a premiere party for the video in D.C. almost 2 months ago, and I saw it the next day when I was interviewing Mully and the director, The Grench from Sleepin Giant Media, came over and played it on his laptop, but the video wasn’t available to watch on YouTube or anything until this week.

Labels: Bossman, Mullyman, Skarr Akbar, Sleepin Giant Media, Smash, video

Next week the first Baltimore Independent Music & Arts Festival will be holding showcases all over the city from August 26th to 28th, and there's some good Baltimore club and hip hop artists among BiMA's announced performers: Comp, Ogun, Mullyman, DJ Booman, Soul Cannon, Mickey Free, Scottie B., Little Clayway, April Love, Checkwun, and Prenz Bilal, among others.

Labels: Bourbon St, Comp, DJ Booman, flyer, Little Clayway, Mickey Free, Mullyman, Ogun, Ottobar, Paradox, Red Maple, Scottie B., Soul Cannon

Mullyman - Harder Than Baltimore (Major League Unlimited)

By now hopefully you know Mully's 2nd album's been out for a few weeks, maybe you read my City Paper feature on him, maybe you heard that he leaked the album himself and it's out there for anyone to download (on DatPiff, plus a hundred other sites if you look), and if you really like it you can go to a store or iTunes and cop it officially. I already kinda said all that I can say about the album and a lot of the songs on it, which I've been posting here for the past year and a half. But I will just say, I think this is a big improvement on his first album and a good foot to put forward for anyone who's still on the fence about Mully or hasn't checked out his music yet, hopefully it'll get some good buzz going for him. This albums got a few features, the joints with Smash and Sean Paul that I've posted before, the big song with Bossman, also Nik Stylz and Lady D.

Mullyman f/ C.R. Da Show - "Fast Or Slow" (mp3)
This is one of two hooks by C.R. Da Show on the album and this is probably my favorite of the songs I hadn't heard before, kinda hits this nice vibe of being hip hop and R&B and club music but really just a dope song period.

Labels: Bossman, DJ Booman, mixtape/album review, mp3, Mullyman, Smash

This week in the Baltimore City Paper I have a feature on Mullyman about his new album Harder Than Baltimore and why he leaked the album himself, his production team on the album, his collaborations with Bossman and his ventures into Baltimore club music. It was kinda cool to come full circle and do this story almost exactly 5 years after I met Mully and wrote my first City Paper article about him in 2005.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, magazines/newspapers, Mullyman

Today's Washington Post has a big spread on the city's neighbor to the north, Baltimore, in today's Arts & Living section, including an article by Chris Richards about 92Q and Baltimore club music (you may need to grab a password from bugmenot.com to view it on the Post site). The piece features quotes from K.W. Griff (pictured), Say Wut, Porkchop, Cullen Stalin, and Wye Oak, and also mentions K-Swift, Blaqstarr, Rye Rye, DJ Class, Rod Lee, Mullyman, Booman and the Get Em Mamis (Chris also spoke to me for the article, but I'm not quoted in it, which is a situation I've been on the other end of enough times that I totally understand -- limited space, lack of a perfect quote, etc.).

Labels: 92Q, Baltimore club, Blaq Starr, DJ Booman, DJ Class, G.E.M./Tha Plague, K-Swift, KW Griff, magazines/newspapers, Mullyman, NSW (Say What), Pork Chop, Rod Lee, Rye Rye

Mullyman - "Get Ya Life" (mp3)
Here's the new DJ Booman-produced single from the Harder Than Baltimore album, dropping soon. I've always thought that "get your life" is such a classic Baltimore phrase, has been used in so many club songs, that someone needs to build a whole song around it, glad Mully got the same idea.

Labels: DJ Booman, mp3, Mullyman

Mullyman's latest video, "Home To Stay" directed by The Grench for Sleepin Giant Media, is on the MTV website, song produced by DJ Booman and a lot of other familiar faces make appearances.

Labels: DJ Booman, Mullyman, Sleepin Giant Media, video

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 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

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

DJ Gemini f/ Mullyman, DC Don Juan, Bossman, Gerreddi, Skarr Akbar, Whitefolkz, Smash, and Kingpen Slim - "D.M.V. Dream Team" (mp3)
DJ Gemini gets his DJ Khaled on with this track from his upcoming album Welcome To The D.M.V., with a beat by Mullyman's longtime producer MBAHlievable. I gotta say, it's refreshing to hear something like this with prominent involvement from Baltimore artists; seems like 90% of the time you hear "DMV" it's D.C. folks trying to get support for their shit without showing a lot of love back, if you ask me. Mully, Bossman, Skarr and Smash are all performing at Sonar this Wednesday.

Labels: Bossman, mp3, Mullyman, Skarr Akbar, Smash

Labels: Bossman, Comp, flyer, Mullyman, Skarr Akbar, Smash, Sonar

Paula Campbell - DreamMaker (DNA)

I've always been a fan of the early singles and independent album Paula Campbell put out in 2003 and 2004, and for a long time since then she's seemed like Baltimore's best hope for another mainstream R&B star after Mario. But to be honest I don't really know what's been going on with her career since then. She got signed to Sony 4 years ago, and started working with Ne-Yo 3 years ago, but doesn't seem to be any closer to dropping an album now. She finally has a song out featuring Ne-Yo called "Denial," but it's kind of mediocre and sure isn't a hit. Still, I give her props for still representing her Baltimore roots and doing a lot of stuff with artists here still, as well as this new 'street album' with DNA that's on AllBmoreHipHop.com. It has some new songs along with a lot of the singles she's released over the last few years, including the latest ones "Denial" and "Get Back 2 U," and older ones like "Champion," "Crying Tonight," "Won't Love U Back," and "Ain't Nobody Stupid." Sadly, again, hearing all these songs together is just a reminder that none of these songs went anywhere or were particularly good. She still has an appealing voice and I think just needs the right material, but for whatever reason she had better songs earlier in her career, especially on that indie album Who Got Next. The bonus track at the end of the mixtape is a megamix of the DMX and Baltimore versions of the "Where They Do That At?" remix that includes the Smash, 100 Grandman, Mullyman, Los and Comp verses, among others.

Paula Campbell - "I'm The Ish (PC Rmx)" (mp3)
I'm kinda completing a set here, since this is just about the only "I'm The Ish" remix I haven't posted here at some point (although I mentioned it in the DJ Class Best of Baltimore piece last year).

Labels: 100 Grandman, ALLBMOREHIPHOP.COM, Baltimore club, Comp, DJ Class, DNA, Los, mixtape/album review, mp3, Mullyman, Paula Campbell, Smash