Mz Streamz - It's Alive (Milkcrate Records)

Mz Streamz is a young female MC from Baltimore, I think she's only 19 or 20, but she's been working with Debonair Samir and Aaron Lacrate and getting a lot of publicity lately. You might have heard her on their Club Crack album last year or you might have heard the remix of her single with Skarr Akbar, or you might have seen her in the Baltimore Sun or at last year's Queen of the Mic battle. But she finally released her first mixtape this year, and although I think she's got a decent flow, I'm not totally sold on her, she comes off a little anonymous. And, like Bret McCabe noted in his City Paper review, the pacing and variety of the mixtape is a little over the top, going from hip hop beats to Baltimore club to Go-Go to '80s pop to Miley Cyrus and back, and while she's versatile enough that she can rap over pretty much all of it, you don't get much sense of her, and her personality, whatever it is, gets overwhelmed. I always say I like fast-paced mixtapes that don't let you get bored, but I feel like I finally heard a counterexample that convinces me that it's possible to go too far over the top, because this CD is kind of exhausting to listen to, there's no breathing room between tracks and it just gets annoying after a while, plus you've got Fatman Scoop yelling over it all.

Mz Streamz f/ DJ Class - "Fo'real" (mp3)
This is a cool collab, as usual Class makes dope tracks.

Labels: Baltimore club, Debonair Samir, DJ Class, mixtape/album review, mp3, Mz Streamz

Skarr Akbar - The Mind Of A Maniac (Akbar Enterprize/Mid-Atlantic Mafia/Global Ent./Tommy Boy Entertainment)

It's funny, even though I go back with Skarr and see him out around town performing all the time and catch up here and there, it seems like I can never keep up with all his movements. It seems like for every mixtape of his I get there are a couple others I never hear, and I didn't even realize until I picked this one up last time I saw him at the Black Hole recently that he's now signed with Tommy Boy Entertainment (formerly Tommy Boy Records). They're not as strong in hip hop as they once were and I don't think they have a major label affiliation anymore, but it's still pretty cool for him to be with a national company with that kind of history, it'll be interesting to see if they can do anything to take Skarr to the next level, especially since "Scholarship Chick" is kinda shaping up to be his biggest single to date. This mixtape is pretty good, first half some really good original tracks and the second half mostly remixes of songs by popular artists. There's an official remix of the Mz Streamz single from the Debonair Samir Club Crack album, and Skarr raps in AutoTune on that and also on the track "She Lonely," and I dunno, don't think it's really a good look for him. But then, I think 99% of all people messing with AutoTune the last couple years sound terrible with it, including in Baltimore (with the exception of DJ Class and maaaaybe one or two other people). The Gritty Gang also makes an appearance.

Skarr Akbar - "Money On Ya Head" (mp3)
This song is tough, as long as every Skarr Akbar mixtape has a few songs like this I'll always look forward to them.

Labels: Debonair Samir, mixtape/album review, mp3, Mz Streamz, Skarr Akbar

Aaron Lacrate & Debonair Samir present B-More Club Crack (Koch Records/E1 Music/Milkcrate Records)

Aaron Lacrate and his whole "club crack"/"gutter music" thing have never sat well with me, but I've kinda explained all that on this site before, so I'm not gonna get into all that too much again. But this album, which was mostly recorded 3 years ago and features a lot of dope Baltimore rappers like Tru Bill and B. Rich and J Wildz over hip hop and club beats by Debonair Samir, is pretty good, and I was really happy to hear that it was finally coming out nationally when I interviewed Samir a couple months back. The kinda breakout MCs featured on multiple tracks are Verb, who's on the single I posted a few weeks ago, and Mz Streamz, who I saw compete at Queen Of The Mic 2 recently.

Bret McCabe's City Paper review kinda summed up how I feel about the album, which is that it's good but kind of consistent to a fault, because it's just one party-oriented banger after another. It's fun and well-produced, and I especially like D.O.G.'s "Talkin' Ish," but it gets a little monotonous over the course of a CD. Plus I mainly like the older tracks from the original version of the album they made 3 years ago; the newer tracks feel a little too trendy to me with the AutoTune and "A Milli"-type beats, I think they might've tried too hard to sound current. There was an article by Rashod D. Ollison in the Baltimore Sun this week about the renewed interest in club music, centered around DJ Class and the release of B-More Club Crack. It's a good article, but I'm disappointed that it makes the same mistake as a lot of other media by focusing on Lacrate, who's mentioned almost a dozen times, and downplaying Samir, who's mentioned exactly once. This is really Samir's record and his beats, and I've never gotten the impression that Lacrate's contributions were ever really musical rather than on the business side, especially given that some of these songs were made before they even met.

Tim Trees - "F.I.R.E." (mp3)
Some of the songs on this album original appeared on local Baltimore releases by the artists, like Mullyman's "The Real Is Back" was on Industry Invasion in 2007, and Verb and J Hussein's "Post Up" was on the Dirty Hartz mixtape It Is What It Is Vol. 2 in 2006. But this one is practically ancient, and first appeared on the Tim Trees mixtape Too Gangsta For Radio in 2003 or 2004. It's kinda cool to hear it included on here, too, because I think Rod Lee's beats on the first couple Tim Trees albums were really kinda the blueprint for a lot of what Samir does on this album. Trees said in my 2005 City Paper article that this song would be on his 3rd album, but here we are almost four years later and as far as I know that still hasn't dropped, which is a shame, I was really looking forward to it. I guess it could be like B-More Club Crack and just drop outta nowhere eventually, though.

Labels: B. Rich, Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore club, Baltimore Sun, D.O.G., Debonair Samir, Dirty Hartz, DJ Class, magazines/newspapers, mixtape/album review, mp3, Mullyman, Mz Streamz, Tim Trees, Verb

41yo.com is a great new Baltimore music website from Brandon Soderberg of No Trivia and the City Paper, I'm sure I'll be linking back there a lot in the future but I'll just say right that if you bookmark Gov't Names you need to bookmark that shit too. The best stuff on there so far includes a big great Mania Music Group article that includes an entertaining video full of footage of Midas and Ron G. and Kane, a piece about the Kanye remix of DJ Class's "I'm The Ish" (also including an mp3 of Class on the remix of "Move" by Mims) and a guide to Baltimore on Twitter, and posts on Blaqstarr and Mz Streamz.

I've been meaning to update my blogroll for a minute, probably gonna do that later this week, so feel free to remind me what sites I need to include. It's really tough because I wanna focus on interesting/relevant/frequently updated sites that focus on local music in general and avoid self-absorbed "what I had for lunch" artists blogs and Twitters, but maybe I can find some kind of balance. Also, you'd think that random Mickey Mouse rap blogs that have nothing to do with what I cover on this site would stop hitting me up for a "link exchange," which is a stupid practice to begin with, but they just keep on doing it.

Labels: 41yo, Baltimore club, Blaq Starr, DJ Class, Kane, Mania Music Group, Midas, Mz Streamz, Ron G., video

In the past month or so on the Baltimore City Paper's Noise blog, I've posted a bunch of new concert reviews: Ms. Stress, Si-Notes, Shy, Mz Streamz and others at Tayland Promotions' Queen Of The Mic 2 @ Sonar, Greenspan and others at No Guts No Glory @ 5 Seasons, George Clinton @ Rams Head Live, Eureka Birds @ Mobtown Studios, the Awesome Fest @ the Sidebar, open mic night @ 8x10 and Witch, Earthless and Vincent Black Shadow @ the Ottobar.

Labels: 5 Seasons, Baltimore City Paper, battle, Greenspan, magazines/newspapers, Ms. Stress, Mz Streamz, Noise, Ottobar, Si-Notes, Sonar, Tayland Promotions

Labels: Baltimore club, D.O.G., Debonair Samir, flyer, KW Griff, Mullyman, Mz Streamz, Tim Trees, Verb