Labels: Dirt Platoon, flyer, Sonar, Sonny Brown

Some stuff I posted on the City Paper's Noise blog in the past month or so: a Club Beat column about DJ Jonny Blaze, and live reviews of the Paused In Time release party (featuring G.E.M., E Major, Sonny Brown, etc.) @ Sonar, Kane and Midas of Mania Music Group @ the Go-Green Hip Hop Tour, Melodic Mondays @ 5 Seasons, the Baltimore All-Rap Round Robin (featuring Height With Friends, AK Slaughter, etc. @ Load Of Fun, Sonic Youth/The Entrance Band @ the 9:30 Club (big thanks to Robbie for tickets), and Ted Leo/State Radio @ Rams Head Live.

Labels: 5 Seasons, Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore club, E Major, G.E.M./Tha Plague, Height, Kane, Mania Music Group, Midas, Noise, Sonar, Sonny Brown

A&R TUESDAYS 5 SEASONS JUNE 30TH

This is for the people that need promo.

This is for the people that need heads to listen to there music.

This is for the heads that need to learn more about this business.

This is for the people that need to meet people involved in the Baltimore music scene.

Wanna know where the shows are between MD & VA?

There arew so many things you need to do before you take your career to that next level. You may want a BIG recording contract or you may want to put your music out independently and be the next MASTER P or you may just want to be heard in your city, but at the end of the day YOU need to know how to get it to that next level instead of running around in circles. EVERYDAY I get emails about people wanting me to listen to there music or watch there video's or they just want to ask questions. I dont have time in my day to actually do that for everybody so i came up with a plan.

Every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month I am hosting a monthly meeting of the Baltimore music family. DC and VA is welcomed as well. It will be called A&R TUESDAYS. At A&R Tuesdays i will invite A&R's, producers, DJ's, and emcees, and promoters to come thru and speak about there experiences in the game and show you how they maximized there potential. I will be giving artist time to get on stage and let the people know where they can cop there music and i am going to let the artist have there music played so that there own peers can here there stuff. If you have a video you just did and you want us to watch it? well instead of a few people have a filled house watch it. You have a event your starting? promote it here. You have a new album coming out? promote it here? you have a new label starting? Let us know... here at 830 North Guilford Street at the 5 seasons. DJ BRUCE LEROY will be playing the music.. SONNY BROWN as your host, Honey management and Street Legal Entertainment will be in the building. Drink specials all nite long, food, great music from Baltimores own all nite long... NO PERFORMANCES STRICTLY NETWORKING.. Something I think we all 4get from time to time.. think about it.. how can you finish a mixtape and expect to sell it to people who know NOTHING about YOU?

$10 to get in
$1 shots all nite long
Baltimore local music all nite long
STRICT SECURITY

Lets make it happen BALTIMORE!!!!!!! The time is NOW!

Labels: 5 Seasons, flyer, Sonny Brown, Street Legal

Back in 2007 I met up with some guys who were making a documentary about Baltimore hip hop, and they interviewed me in a Reisterstown parking lot. And now the film, Paused In Time is coming out on DVD, and I'm going to be in it apparently. The trailer is on YouTube and there's going to be a release party at Sonar next week.

Labels: E Major, flyer, G.E.M./Tha Plague, Sonar, Sonny Brown, video

I wrote a feature about Sonny Brown that's in the City Paper this week. I've known Sonny for a few years and have a lot of respect for him, everyone in Baltimore knows him from hosting shows but I don't think they necessarily realize that he's a talented MC and hopefully the music he's getting ready to release this year will show that.

(photo by Christopher Myers)

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, magazines/newspapers, Sonny Brown

So this is it, it's been a nice trip down memory lane. I hope people don't take the ranking too seriously, the numbers are really just there to organize it and make it look a little better, but really all these songs I fuck with really heavy and I hope each of them gets a few new fans from these posts. Going back to a regular schedule of new music on Thursday:

1. Tim Trees - "Bank Roll" (mp3) - March 31, 2005
2. Skarr Akbar - "Bang" (mp3) - August 19, 2006
3. Dirty Hartz f/ Mullyman - "That's Da Sound" (mp3) - June 5, 2006
4. Say Wut - "Hornz Joint" (mp3) - June 21, 2005
5. Bossman - "Off Da Record" (mp3) - January 19, 2005
6. Silowette - "Chicken Box" (mp3) -
7. Jimmy Jones & Booman - "Watch Out For The Big Girl" (mp3) - December 24, 2005
8. Ckrisis - "Down For Whatever" (mp3) - August 16, 2007
9. DJ Class - "I'm The Ish" (mp3) - November 11, 2008
10. Sonny Brown f/ Mr. Wilson & Mo Gant - "You Ain't Shit" (mp3) - June 8, 2008

Labels: Bossman, Dirty Hartz, DJ Booman, DJ Class, lists, mp3, Mr. Wilson, Mullyman, NSW (Say What), Skarr Akbar, Sonny Brown, Tim Trees

Wrapping up the first half now, we're really getting into back to back songs I straight up love. Once again, there's a totally unintentional theme with a lot of songs I posted in 2006 originally, which makes sense since that was probably the most exciting year for me personally, in the history of running this site:

51. UnReal f/ Sonny Brown - "Hell 2 Pay" (mp3) - September 9, 2006
52. Cutthroat - "If I Die" (mp3) - October 15, 2006
53. Tyree Colion - "My Projects" (mp3) - November 19th, 2006
54. Blaq Starr - "Stop" (mp3) - August 22, 2005
55. Brown F.I.S.H. - "45" (mp3) - December 22, 2006
56. 410 Pharaohs - "Watch Her Shake It (aka Hammer Dance)" (mp3) - July 29, 2006
57. ShellBe R.A.W. f/ XO - "Damn Shells" (mp3) - August 7, 2006
58. B.I.G. Status - "Line Up" (mp3) - January 10, 2006
59. Bossman - "Oh" (mp3) - June 9, 2005
60. Bigg Patch - "Supa Ugly" (mp3) - July 25, 2006

Labels: B.I.G. Status, Baltimore club, Bigg Patch, Blaq Starr, Brown F.I.S.H., Cutthroat, lists, mp3, Sonny Brown, Tyree Colion, UnReal

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

Labels: DJ P-Funk, E Major, flyer, Sonar, Sonny Brown

Labels: Ab Rock, Club Reality, flyer, Sonny Brown, UnReal

I tag posts on Gov't Names to hopefully make it easier to navigate, especially for first time or occasional readers, just to make it easier for them to find just posts about the artist or topic they're interested in. But it's also become kind of an interesting way to measure how frequently I post about a given artist or topic, so I did a review of the most common tags I did this in 2007. I thought about not doing it again this year, partly because some people started getting invested in it as some important list to be on and catch feelings about me not posting about them enough or not tagging every post like I'm trying to sabotage them (what up Excel, lol). But really I'm just a stats nerd and it's something I think is cool to mess with, so fuck it:

1. flyer (306/361/1010)
2. mp3 (120/103/346)
3. Baltimore Club (114/76/259)
4. mixtape/album review (79/80/241)
5. 5 Seasons (65/102/267)
6. DJ Booman (45/38/95)
7. Sonar (44/39/108)
8. magazines/newspapers (41/29/119)
9. Ogun (39/40/120)
10. K-Swift (36/18/79)
11. Baltimore City Paper (34/36/120)
12. Turntable Club (33/53/96)
13. Unruly Records (30/11/53)
14. Bossman (29/42/139)
15. Blaq Starr (28/21/68)
16. battle (27/2/29)
17. Skarr Akbar (26/35/107)
18./19. (tie) Mullyman (25/36/117) / B.O.M.B. (25/24/52)
20. Sonny Brown (23/60/138)
21. Rod Lee (22/19/88)
22. Team Fifty (21/34/97)
23./24./25. (tie) Labtekwon (20/17/57) / E Major (20/14/41) / The Wire (20/10/41)

So that's 8 rappers, 4 Baltimore club DJs, 3 venues, 2 labels, and a lot of other types of topics. The first number in parentheses is posts in 2008, second number is posts in 2007, third number is total posts up through the end of '08. As I noted last year, although I try to document the whole Baltimore scene faithfully on this site, ultimately it does reflect my taste, and I make no apologies for covering some artists more consistently than others. And I think this list is still a pretty useful metric of who really worked hard in '08 and played a lot of shows, put out music and guested on releases throughout the year. You can't deny the grind of guys like DJ Booman and Ogun. It's kind of a bummer to even see K-Swift mentioned here since so much of that number (nearly 2/3rds) is accounted for by my coverage following her death. There are definitely some folks that did a lot in '08 that I was slower to pick up on, like Wordsmith, and probably plenty more that just weren't on my radar and should feel free to e-mail me every time they play a show or drop new music so I don't miss it in the future. And there were some up-and-coming folks that I like but tried not to post too much that you'd get sick of them or think I was trying to force them on you. But with all those caveats in mind, you can kinda draw your own conclusions. Hopefully '09 will be just as busy for all those folks.

Labels: B.O.M.B., Blaq Starr, Bossman, DJ Booman, E Major, K-Swift, Labtekwon, lists, Mullyman, Ogun, Rod Lee, Skarr Akbar, Sonny Brown, Unruly Records

Labels: Brakefast Records, flyer, Labtekwon, Shaka Pitts, Sonar, Sonny Brown

This month on the City Paper's Noise blog, I interviewed DJ Frie (pictured above) for my Club Beat column, and reviewed the following shows: McCracken/Scholarman/Soulstice/Wordsmith @ Bedrock, Sonny Brown/UnReal/Kane/Midas/Labtekwon/Skarr Akbar/B.O.M.B. (and many others) @ The Baltimore Crown awards, the "Music & The Brain Salon (with Shodekeh) @ the American Visionary Art Museum, The Oranges Band/Gary B. & The Notions/Deleted Scenes @ The Ottobar, the Cameron Blake Band @ the 13th Floor and Mike Pursley/Neil Cotterill @ Frazier's.

Labels: 5 Seasons, B.O.M.B., Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore club, Bedrock, Kane, Labtekwon, Midas, Minlus McCracken, Noise, Ottobar, Shodekeh, Skarr Akbar, Sonny Brown, UnReal, Wordsmith

Labels: DJ P-Funk, flyer, Minlus McCracken, Sonar, Sonny Brown

Labels: A-Class, DJ P-Funk, flyer, Sonar, Sonny Brown

Next Friday the 2nd annual Baltimore Crown event is taking place at the 5 Seasons, and there's a lot of performances scheduled as well as an MC battle, which will be judged by the crowd, and a producer battle, for which I've been asked to serve as one of the judges. This year there's also going to be awards voted on by the public for various categories, and info on voting is here (there's a "Best Blog and/or Website" category, hint hint).

Labels: 5 Seasons, A-Class, announcements, B-Fly, battle, Dirt Platoon, flyer, Kane, Minlus McCracken, Ogun, Sean Toure, Shaka Pitts, Sonny Brown, Symantyx, UnReal

Labels: DJ P-Funk, Pro and Reg, Sonar, Sonny Brown

Next Friday I'm going to be one of the judges at the Scribble Jam preliminary at Sonar, where Baltimore MCs and producers will compete for a spot at this year's Scribble Jam, should be a fun night.

Labels: battle, DJ P-Funk, E Major, flyer, Sonar, Sonny Brown

M.O.P. : JOE BUDDEN
TERMANOLOGY : BIG SHUG : OGUN :
DJ P-FUNK : HOSTED BY SONNY BROWN

8 PM DOORS - ALL AGES
Thu Sep 25
MAIN
$20 ADV
$25 DOOR

Labels: DJ P-Funk, flyer, Ogun, Sonar, Sonny Brown

Labels: Brown F.I.S.H., DJ P-Funk, flyer, Sonar, Sonny Brown