Here's the video for Wombat55's "Baltimore," directed by Keston De Coteau and featuring a cameo from Pork Chop. Not a bad song, but we don't need anyone still sampling the Nina Simone joint 5 years after Mullyman did it first.

Labels: Pork Chop, video

“K-Swift Day” 2010 is this Sunday, July 25th at Reedbird Park in Cherry Hill!

To celebrate the life of the late DJ K-Swift, the 92Q Family is inviting the entire Q-munity and all area DJ’s to Reedbird Park, 101 Reedbird Avenue (next to Cherry Hill Splash Park) in Cherry Hill this Sunday from 1pm-5pm! We’ll be honoring the memory of our Club Queen with food, fun and a live All-Star B’more Club Mix-Off featuring your favorite DJ’s from B’more and beyond! Plus, donations will be accepted by Swift’s family for the DJ K-Swift Memorial Scholarship Fund.

Then join us for…

A Memorial Event & Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

7pm-midnight

Skateworks, 1716 Whitehead Road in Gwynn Oak

Admission: $10

A portion of the proceeds from this event will benefit the memorial fund for the late Khia “DJ K-Swift” Edgerton.

***Flowers and cards will be accepted at the event***

Enjoy music by DJ Porkchop, DJ Big Rel, DJ The Kid and guest DJ’s.

And the party doesn’t end there. Join 92Q’s Konan at the…

Afterparty

6 pm-2 am

Bourbon Street, 316 Guilford Avenue

All of the proceeds from this event will benefit the memorial fund for the late Khia “DJ K-Swift” Edgerton.

Labels: 92Q, Baltimore club, Bourbon St, flyer, K-Swift, Pork Chop

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

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

My stuff on the Baltimore City Paper's Noise blog this month included a review of ScholarMan's new album, Free Spirit Of A Troubled Soul, and live reviews of Reina Williams @ Peace & A Cup Of Joe, Balti Mare and the Baltimore String Felons @ the Sidebar, and Bossman and Mullyman @ the Black Hole Rock Club with DJ Booman, DJ 5Starr, 100 Grandman, TestMe, Smash, Pork Chop, Skarr Akbar and others.

Labels: 100 Grandman, Baltimore City Paper, Bossman, DJ 5 Starr, DJ Booman, Mullyman, Noise, Pork Chop, ScholarMan, Skarr Akbar, Smash, TestMe

Comp - The Pay Attention Edition (Mr. Pay Attention/Love Me Or Hate Me Ent./Bang-A-Rang Gang/Shape Shifter Ent.)

Comp just dropped his first official album last summer, but he drops mixtapes that might as well be albums all the time, and true to his work ethic he's back barely six months later with a mixtape full of original productions. And more importantly, for the first time this tape has production credits on all the tracks, and you can really see how many of the beats Comp did himself. I always knew he produced some tracks going back to his earliest releases, but I had no idea how proficient he was until this mixtape, where he did all but 2 beats on the mixtape, with one of the others done by Jay Funk. And even though his sound is definitely kinda weird and low budget, I really respect his grind as a producer, not many other rappers in the city who can do both that well. It's definitely lighter material than the album, the kinda more playful, laid back Comp that you tend to get on mixtapes, but it's still pretty good. The "Where They Do That At?" remix (with Pork Chop, Skarr Akbar, Smash, 100 Grandman, Barnes, Los, Bossman, Paula Campbell and Mullyman, among others) is a bonus track at the end, and you can download the whole thing at RapBasement.com.

Comp - "Wut Else" (mp3)
When I wrote about his The Man With The Hand album last year, my one big criticism is that Comp's been the NYC rapper "what else" ad lib and really running it into the ground, and I even counted out 44 times he said it in the course of the whole CD. So I have to say it was pretty hilarious to put in this new mixtape, and the second track not only is called "Wut Else," but features him saying the phrase 42 times just in that one song. I didn't have the energy or patience to count "what else"'s for the whole CD this time, but he says it 19 times on the next song, "Action Figure," so he's really stepping it up. I'm not as annoyed by it anymore, maybe because I'm just numb to it now, but I still think it's lame to take a really played out phrase from another city and make it your 'thing,' Comp is creative enough that he should be able to come up with his own signature ad lib.

Labels: 100 Grandman, Barnes, Bossman, Comp, Jay Funk, Los, mixtape/album review, mp3, Mullyman, Paula Campbell, Pork Chop, Skarr Akbar, Smash

Labels: 100 Grandman, Club Reality, Comp, DJ Booman, flyer, Mullyman, Ogun, Pork Chop, Skarr Akbar, Smash

DJ Quicksilva f/ Pork Chop, Skarr Akbar, Q, Smash, 100 Grandman, Barnes, Tiara Laniece, Los, Comp, Bossman, Paula Campbell, JP and Mullyman - "Where They Do That At? (Bmore Remix)" (mp3)
It's funny, I was just thinking recently about this song, which the station DJ Quicksilva works for, WKYS, has been playing so much, and the D.C. remix I'd been hearing more recently, and wondering if Quicksilva spinning at a Washington station the last few years had kinda made him forget his Baltimore roots -- his Hot Boy Vol. 1 was one of my favorite Unruly mix CDs back in the day, and Tim Trees credits him with being the first DJ to break "Bank Roll." But it turns out I shouldn't have worried about that, because apparently the Baltimore remix has been out for a few weeks, but I somehow didn't hear about it until Brandon on No Trivia mentioned it, and it's got a really impressive lineup. Really, of all the Baltimore posse cuts there've been over the years, this might be the single biggest gathering of prominent MCs on one track that I've ever seen. Shame it happened with such a goofy-ass song that's a bigger hit in D.C., though, and even at 6 minutes there's only enough room for each rapper to do a little 8 bar verse so nobody gets to really stretch their legs or leave a big impression. Anyone have any idea who Tiara Laniece or JP is?

Labels: 100 Grandman, Barnes, Bossman, Comp, Los, mp3, Mullyman, Paula Campbell, Pork Chop, Skarr Akbar, Smash

DJ Diamond K recently released The K-Swift Story, a DVD documentary about the life of DJ K-Swift and her passing last year, and he sent me a copy a little while back that I finally sat down and watched. It's about an hour long, and obviously it's a real passion project, low budget and a little awkwardly edited at times but with the best of intentions, a lot of what little video footage of Swift there is out there, news reports about her death, and a lot of interviews with friends and peers like Pork Chop, Rod Lee, Buck Jones, DJ Big L and others. If you buy it off of Diamond K's site some of the money goes to the Khia K-Swift Memorial Scholarship Fund.

Labels: Baltimore club, Buck Jones, Diamond K, K-Swift, Pork Chop, Rod Lee

Labels: Baltimore club, DJ Pierre, flyer, Pork Chop

Club Queen K-Swift - Jumpoff Greatest Hits, Vol. 1-5 (Unruly Records/Koch Entertainment)

So this is it: the last DJ mix that K-Swift ever recorded, shortly before her tragic death last summer. As I learned in my interview with Sean Caesar before the CD was released, she planned it as the first of three Greatest Hits albums, this one covering the first 5 volumes of the Jumpoff mix CD that were released in 2004 and 2005. It was supposed to be something she'd just release locally to Downtown Locker Rooms like her previous CDs before Unruly signed a distribution deal with Koch. But since her passing, they decided to make this the first release through the Koch deal, and it's been on Amazon and in stores around the country since the week of Christmas.

'04 and '05 represent one of my favorite eras for Baltimore club music, so it's really great to hear all these tracks collected here together: some of the best songs ever by Blaq Starr ("Tote It") and Rod Lee ("Ridaz") and Debonair Samir ("Eamon Joint") and King Tutt ("Shake My Ass" remix) and Say Wut "(Say Wut THeme Pt. 2") and DJ Class ("Next To You"), among others. Since Swift never got to record her intro and outro shout-outs for the mix, Unruly got M.I.A., the "Paper Planes" girl, to host the CD (I personally can't stand her music and think even her intros on this are annoying as hell, but whatever, if it motivates more people to buy the album then great). Blaq Starr and Rye Rye also do drops, and Squirrel Wyde does a nice little dedication, which might really be the only acknowledgment on the whole CD or package that Swift is no longer with us. At the end of the CD, they say something about future volumes of Greatest Hits, so maybe Unruly is going to have another DJ do mixes of tracks from the later K-Swift CDs.

K.W. Griff - "Pork And Swift" (mp3)
There were a couple new tracks added to the CD from what Swift mixed, and one of them is probably my favorite posthumous K-Swift tribute track, simply because it takes some samples of her and Pork Chop talking on the air on 92Q and just sets it to the beat. It's nothing real fancy, but it brings back a whole lot of memories of listening to them on the radio all those years. Plus it's good to hear her actual voice on this CD if only a little bit.

Labels: Baltimore club, Blaq Starr, Debonair Samir, DJ Class, K-Swift, King Tutt, KW Griff, mixtape/album review, mp3, NSW (Say What), Pork Chop, Rod Lee, Rye Rye, Unruly Records

The 2008 Baltimore Music Conference is coming up, and runs from Wednesday to Saturday next week, and I've always missed it in previous years, so I'm looking forward to checking it out this time, it looks like there's gonna be some good shows and seminars happening throughout the vent. I'm just gonna go as a spectator and see and review some parts of it, but my friends at Mobtown Studios are among the sponsors and Mat from the studio will be appearing on a couple panels. The lineup is full of different genres of music and people from all over the place, but there's a good number of Baltimore hip hop, club music and R&B artists performing (A-Class, B-Amazing, DLake, James Nasty, Natural Remedy, Pro & Reg, Reina Williams, Wordsmith, etc.) and some folks from the local rap scene hosting events (Pork Chop, Steez, Florida from Strictly HipHop), should be fun.

Labels: A-Class, Bedrock, Black Hole Rock Club, flyer, Ottobar, Pork Chop, Pro and Reg, Steez Promo, Wordsmith

Bossman and Raheem DeVaughn - "Missin' U" (mp3)
Mic Life Magazine asked me to help put together a list of K-Swift tribute tracks and I realized that there were some good ones I hadn't posted on this site at all yet. I've posted ones by Skarr Akbar and Diamond K, now here's a pretty great one by Bossman and Raheem DeVaughn. There's also a really heartfelt track by Pork Chop called "Never Be Another," but I don't wanna post that because I think he's selling copies of that song and giving the money to K-Swift's family, but you can stream it on his MySpace page.

Labels: Bossman, K-Swift, mp3, Pork Chop