Friday, March 31, 2006
Ro Brooks Day
Tuesday, April 4th @ 5pm
@ Sounds N Da Hood
1905 Edmondson Ave. Baltimore, MD 21223
Jerome "Ro" Brooks, owner of Sounds N Da Hood, the best hip hop record store in Baltimore (although not for long, unfortunately, since he's shutting it down at the end of April to open a new store in Atlanta), is holding an event to celebrate his accomplishments, including the release of the movie Charm City movie, which he's one of the stars of, along with a number of Baltimore hip hop artists including Comp and Little Clayway. The new issue of Ro's magazine The Hook-Up is coming soon too, and I did a couple interviews in there, with Mobb Deep and a cover story with Chamillionaire. Ro is a cool guy who's had his hand in a lot of interesting projects over the years, plus the dude is giving me some work, so come out and support him.
Labels: Comp, flyer, Little Clayway, magazines/newspapers
Thursday, March 30, 2006
NOE, the Bmore rapper who signed with the Diplomats that I posted about a couple months ago, had a song called "Murder Money" up on the front page of AllHipHop.com earlier this week. I'm not sure how long the link will be good, but it's still working right now, you can click directly to the song here. The song is hot. There's also info on his MySpace about how to order his mixtape, I might have to cop that.
Labels: NOE
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Labels: flyer
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Unruly Club Classics Vol. III (Unruly Records)
Unruly is pretty much the most important label in the history of Baltimore club music, and though they've put out some fairly big local records in the past year (like Mullyman's album and K-Swift's Vol. 6 mix), this new Club Classics double CD comp, which I believe just came out today, is really shaping up to be their big push to re-establish themselves now that there's actually a booming market for club music outside Bmore. I just reviewed the album for Stylus Magazine, and one of my editors at the City Paper, Jess Harvell, reviewed it last week. I would've given it a higher rating, but I'm just not that crazy about the unmixed format of the first disc. But still, there's a lot of good club music on here, and I hope they sell a hell of a lot of records with this. I haven't written about club music here on Gov't Names much at all in the past few months, because this is a hip hop site first and foremost, and lately I've been really focused on the Bmore hip hop movement, while club music's been getting plenty of press on its own. Plus I'm not really a clubgoer, I go to hip hop shows all the time but I don't really hang out at Hammerjacks or whatever, to me it's always been more driving music or music to rock out to at home when I'm in the mood for it. But I do know there are people out there that check GN for club music posts, so I might get back to posting about it a little more often in the future.
Debonair Samir - "Throw It Up" (mp3)
At some point a year or two ago, I was getting really sick of hearing Lil Jon samples in every other club song, but this one of the tracks I always fucked with. It cracks me up how at the beginning of the track Samir shouts his own name in his best Lil Jon impression (although actually he sounds more like Bone Crusher or someone else).
DJ Snoopy and Lil Mama - "Hand Clap" (mp3)
I always like these club joints that namecheck as many neighborhoods and clubs as possible.
Labels: Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore club, Debonair Samir, magazines/newspapers, Scottie B., Unruly Records
Monday, March 27, 2006
Style Warz on March 30th (and the last Thursday of every month) with D.O.G. and Midas as featured performers. Check out the City Paper article about last month's Super Style Warz by Jason Torres, and also the NPR radio documentary about Style Warz on 88.1 that aired on Friday and is archived on the site. Congrats to C Love and P-Funk for all the media coverage Style Warz is getting, they've really earned it. I used to not even really like watching battles but they've made it a must-see event every month.
Labels: Baltimore City Paper, C Love, D.O.G., flyer
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Team Green - Hostage, Volume 1 (Hosted by DNA)
Team Green is a group put together by Akira The Great, the MC/producer from Beat Game Industries, who did the beats for the non-freestyle tracks on here and some dope beats for other artists. The other MCs in the group are Cato The Prankster, Bandana P, and Midas. Midas is definitely the rising star of the group and if you've been to Style Warz in the past few months, you know why. He was the champ in December, and then was the runner-up in January, and then the runner-up again at Super Style Warz last month, and this month he's coming back as a featured performer. In December I saw the first few battles he was in but ducked out before the end to hit another show, but I wasn't surprised when I heard later that he won, he really stood out. He's this this chubby dude with mad charisma, he gets his dance on while he's rhyming and has some sick punchlines, but he also comes off real humble and cool. I'm definitely looking forward to the solo mixtape he's dropping soon. The other dudes get in plenty of verses, and there's also appearances from Woodz, Don Brody, Choppa aka Young City, and Lil Nikki. If you check the link to Team Green's MySpace page above you should be able to get in touch with them to get a copy. Akira talks some real funny shit on the outro, like "I would take a Speak-N-Spell, just a Speak-N-Spell, and make the hottest shit you ever heard in your life, hotter than your whole albums."
Midas - "6 Million Dollar Man" (mp3)
This is probably my favorite Midas solo track on the mixtape, "Essential" is good, too, though.
Lil Nikki - "Girl Named Nikki" (mp3)
Akira chops a hot sample on this, and I'm all about the classic Prince shit. Actually, the craziest sample on this mixtape is the R.E.M. "Losing My Religion" flip on Choppa's "The Corner." I'm not sure who Lil Nikki is, I think they say she's from Richmond, VA?
Labels: DNA, Midas, mixtape/album review, mp3
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Friday, March 24, 2006
Madame of Murdaland 2
all-female MC battle
This Monday, March 27th
@ 5 Seasons, 830 Guilford Ave.
Last year's champion Ms. Stress will compete with Krazy (Hustle Hard Blvd.), M.T., and 2 other finalists who will be announced tonight on 88.9 FM.
The winner gets a Championship Belt. $250, 8 hrs studio time, and a gift pack from Unreality Entertainment
Featured performers at the event: Tha Plague, ShellBe Raw, and Siloette from the Annex Clic
Labels: 5 Seasons, Annexx Click, flyer, G.E.M./Tha Plague, Ms. Stress, ShellBe RAW
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Gritty Gang Mixtape (Real On Purpose Entertainment)
When I first started hearing about the Gritty Gang project last year, I was under the impression that it would just be the 3 solo MCs from R.O.P. (Ogun, Ammo and Profound) as a group, which would be cool in and of itself. But when they dropped this mixtape last month, it turned out they had something more ambitious in mind, incorporating a much larger family of Baltimore MCs in the project, including Skarr Akbar, EJ, ShellBe RAW, Tha Plague, and XO. There are some joints on here you might already know from other mixtapes, including my personal favorite "Gully Musick" by Ammo, "Raw" by ShellBe RAW, "What Party?!" by Ogun, Ammo and Profound, plus a lot of new music. You can buy the mixtape direct from Ogun's site, along with the Movement mixtapes and Ogun's solo albums. Shout out to Wink and the whole R.O.P. crew, I feel like they're a really central piece of this Baltimore hip hop thing.
Ammo, Ogun, and Profound - "I Know You Don't Love Me" (mp3)
When the R.O.P. crew performed as Style Warz last month, this was my favorite of their set, hilarious jack of the Tony Yayo track inserting Baltimore MCs' names into the hook: "I know you don't love me/you ain't the same when Bossman's around/I know you don't love me/y'all say Mario holds it down/I know you don't love me/y'all love it when Mullyman's in town/I know you love Tim Trees, love B. Rich/tryna run game on me, you can't win."
EJ - "Freestyle" (mp3)
Congrats to EJ, the Super Style Warz champ, he really earned that shit. I wish I had more music by him than just a handful of tracks from different mixtapes, I know people are really feeling him now, so here's a little something.
Arabz f/ Skarr Akbar - "Judgement Day" (mp3)
This might be my favorite track on the CD, it just sounds evil as hell and Skarr's verses are real intense. When are we gonna get that new album, Skarr?
Labels: G.E.M./Tha Plague, mixtape/album review, mp3, Ogun, ShellBe RAW, Skarr Akbar, XO
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Black TV Online.com has a current episode up in which they profile the Baltimore hip hop scene and interview people like Pork Chop from 92Q's Rap Attack, Kelly Connelly from Music Monthly, and C Love from Style Warz. There's also a past episode you can check out where they interview Ogun.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
DK - "A Part Of History" (mp3)
DK, not to be confused with the D.K. that used to write for Gov't Names, is a rapper from Baltimore who's signed with Purple City, Sheist Bub's Diplomats-affiliated crew. They released an album, Road To Riches, on Babygrande last year, and "A Part Of History" was DK's solo track on the album. He also had a freestyle with Un Kasa, Sheist Bub and Domination, which you can listen to here, that was on Purple City Candyland mixtape. Purple City has a new album coming out this year that DK will probably be featured on, and Babygrande will be releasing a DK solo album sometime this year. You can go to DK's official site to listen to "A Part Of History" and a couple freestyles and read a bio about how he was previously signed by Jay-Z when he was a teenager. A while back here on Gov't Names, a dude named Lil Hertz who said he was part of DK's 730 crew commented on one of my posts and kinda got into some arguments with people. I didn't really get involved in that, though, hopefully noone's holding grudges about whatever that was about. I'm not the biggest Dipset fan, but I gotta give them respect for supporting a lot of Baltimore artists, between signing NOE, Jim Jones doing a song with D.O.G., Cam'ron doing a song with Comp, Stay Gettin' doing beats for Killa Season, and DK hooking up with Purple City.
Labels: DK, mp3, One Up Entertainment
Monday, March 20, 2006
Little Clayway album release party
this Thursday, March 23rd @ Sonar
Labels: flyer, Little Clayway, Sonar
Friday, March 17, 2006
"Attention All Aspiring Music Artists"
Are You the Next Music Superstar waiting to be Discovered and Do you have what it takes to Make A Hit? Well if you do- Tony Austin the president of Russell Simmons Music Group & THENEXT.TV will be kicking off their search for Singers, Rappers, D.J.'s and Producers on March 18th in Baltimore, MD. The Talent Auditions for Tony Austin's New Music Biz Reality Show are open to women and men, of all ages. The season's Talent Search winner will receive a music video and a chance to land a recording contract with Russell Simmons Music Group.
-----Saturday March 18th, 2006
-----Showtime Theatre 9 West 25th street
-----Baltimore, MD 21218
-----12 Noon (Get there early to secure your spot)
To schedule an appointment to audition for Tony Austin's New Music Biz Reality Show log onto www.thenext.tv to sign up. Please feel free to forward this email to any one you think would be interested in an opportunity to audition for the president of Russell Simmons Music Group.
More info here about internships.
Labels: flyer
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Torchlight Entertainment presents…
Torch-Mic Fridays
Each and every Friday @ K-Productions
(Northwood Plaza 1570 Havenwood Road)
Hosted By Lyrical Leviathan
(Torchlight Entertainment)
Doors open at 8:00pm
Only $5
Open Mic @ 9:00pm
Features at 10:00pm
Rock on till 1am
This Week
Gutter Clan Alliance
Young Ace
Tru Bill Ent.
Marshal E. Conway
Butta
Sean Toure
Labels: flyer
Monday, March 13, 2006
On Friday in the Baltimore Sun, there was an article about these guys Conscious Heads, who own a barber shop and decided to start a rap group with real positive, conscious lyrics (if you need a Sun login to read the article, you can get a password here). From some of the things they say in the article, they'd probably be mad at a lot of the kind of hip hop I write about on this site, but no disrespect to what they're doing. You can download a couple short 45-second clips of 2 of their songs on the Sun site.
Labels: Baltimore Sun, magazines/newspapers
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Hip Hop 101
Hosted by Sonny Brown
Every Monday at 5 Seasons
830 Guilford Ave.
This monday, March 13th:
P-CHROME - NOM CLICK
LIL CHRIS - CHARM CITY RECORDS
TYREE COLION - HUSLE HARD BLVD
YOUNG HUSTLERS - HUSTLE HARD BLVD
TOEP
SHOW STARTS AT 11PM
DOORS OPEN AT 9PM
Labels: 5 Seasons, flyer, Hip Hop 101, Sonny Brown, Teop, Tyree Colion
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Darkroom Productions have got a lot of big projects on the horizon, so I'm gonna put you up on some new tracks they've produced that I got direct from Juan Donovan.
Mullyman - "Get Ready (Bodymore Soldiers)" (mp3)
It looks like Darkroom is no longer doing a sequel to the Hamsterdam mixtape, and are instead doing a new project called Harm City Exposed, which will be out around May, and this new Mully track is the first leak from it. I heard another track they did with Mully recently and it's fire.
Diablo - "Round My Hood" (mp3)
Diablo's slept on '05 single "Jail Flick" is going to be featured on the upcoming 4th season of HBO's The Wire, and Darkroom is doing some other music for The Wire (in related news, "Late At Night" by Amadaye from Top Of The World Records will also be featured on The Wire, shout out to HBO for featuring some real Baltimore music in the show). Diablo's album Shop Closed is due out later this year, and I think it's gonna be real hot, it seems like they're really taking their time to do something original. Diablo's lyrics are real grimey but also creative, "Maryland, the state? Look at it, it's shaped like a gun/guess where Baltimore at, son/we on the trigger."
Sqad Up - "Gettin' Drunk & High All Night" (mp3)
As you may already know, Sqad Up are the crew from New Orleans that used to make mixtapes with Lil Wayne, then beefed with him, and then were signed by Lil Flip. Darkroom already did a track with them on their Eyes Above The Water mixtape called "I'm A Baller" featuring B.G. which you can hear on Darkroom's MySpace page, it had the same beat as the Tyree Colion track from Hamsterdam. But this track is going to be on their album on Sony later this year. Darkroom sampled Three 6 Mafia for the hook, and DJ Paul is going to re-record the hook for the album version.
Young Hootie - "Ever Since" (mp3)
Another out-of-town cat that Darkroom are doing tracks for is Young Hootie from Compton, who appears on the cover of the new G-Unit West mixtape.
Labels: Darkroom Productions, Diablo, mp3, Mullyman, The Wire
Friday, March 10, 2006
Under Sound Music Presents: A Night w/ Zion I and Sadat X @ Sonar.
March, 13 2006 at Sonar
407 saratoga Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
Cost: $12
Time: 10.pm (AB and Eyekon on @11pm)
This is a special event brought to you by Under Sound Music and the
folks at Sonar.
The Bay Area's own Zion I and Sadat X from Legedary group Brand Nubian
for one night only in B'more featuring a supporting cast of Under
Sound artists including Eyekon, Breaka, Days Dirges and Ab Rock. Join
us as we present hip hop how it's supposed to be done.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Calling all Rappers, Singers & Poets!
Funk-Hop-n-B-Difrint presents
B-More Flava Talent Extravaganza
Winner will receive production by Ms. Tris Beats, studio time at Street Legal Studios, $200 cash, CD cover design from Funk-Hop-n-B-Difrint, gym membership, and a gas card!
The B-More Flava Talent Extravaganza will be held Friday, March 10th
Call Taz Jones at 443.392.4232 to secure your spot in the hottest talent extravaganza in the city!
Labels: flyer
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
I just heard that Maryland's own Paula Campbell is going down to Tennessee with her Sony labelmates Three 6 Mafia to re-record Taraji Henson's vocals on the hook for their Oscar-winning song "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp," for an upcoming re-release of the track.
Labels: Paula Campbell
Monday, March 06, 2006
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Under Sound Music presents - Breaking Ground, Vol. 1
I reviewed this compilation in the City Paper a couple weeks ago, and I was a little negative in my review, but I have to admit, that's due probably more to my distaste for a lot of backpacker rap than the quality of the product. There was some discussion of my review on the Elements Party message board, but the Under Sound folks took the criticism pretty well and at least appreciated the press and that I compared them to Rawkus. So it was good that they understood where I was coming from, because y'know, I respect everybody's grind, but I also have to be honest as a critic. And there are definitely some tracks on here that I liked. Check out the Under Sound website for more info.
Bigg Patch f/ Cappadonna - "Simple Logic" (mp3)
This song has a real strong anthemic quality, Cappadonna adds a nice little Wu Tang flavor to it. Shout out to Bigg Patch, I need to hear more of his stuff.
Ab Rock - "With Ease" (mp3)
Ab Rock is one of the Style Warz champs and competed in Super Style Warz, matter fact one of the night's best battles was between him and Symph from Tha Plague. This is a real laid back track, though, shows a different side of him than battling.
Labels: Bigg Patch, mixtape/album review, mp3, Under Sound Music
Friday, March 03, 2006
ShellBe RAW has some upcoming shows in Baltimore:
Saturday March 4 - Belvedere Hotel - Even A Man Can Do This: All-Female Rap Revue
Sunday March 5 - Club 429 - DJ 5Starr's birthday party
Friday March 10 - 5 Seasons
Labels: 5 Seasons, flyer, ShellBe RAW
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Huli Shallone - Huli Shallone (Hit 'Em Hard Records)
I'd been saying for a minute that Huli needed to drop a new CD, even though it's been barely a year since It's My Turn, because he's had 2 big radio hits that weren't on that album, and "For My Shorty"'s been one of the most requested songs on 92Q (local or otherwise) for the past 3-4 months. And sure enough, over the weekend, he was on the Q a couple times, calling in during Paula Campbell's guest DJ slot and then visiting Rap Attack, letting everyone know that a new self-titled album would be available at Downtown Locker Room on Tuesday (yesterday). The packaging is really basic, black and white, no pictures or liner notes, with 2 tracks from Huli's old group Nature's Problem tacked on, but it'll probably still sell 10 thousand or more just like his last album. Huli doesn't really have a lot of buzz outside radio play, but that seems almost intentional, because I've talked to people who had a hard time trying to get Huli to do an interview or appear on a mixtape, and he rarely performs live, as far as I know, outside of the Believe tour last summer. I haven't had the album long enough to figure out what I think of the new songs, but production-wise it's pretty similiar to his old stuff. "What Grindin' Do" might be my favorite so far. There's gonna be a release party for the album at Club Mate this Friday, March 3rd.
Huli Shallone f/ Mannie Fresh - "Makin' Moves" (mp3)
This song is pretty old now, it's been on the radio since last summer, but it's nice to finally have it on CD. It was pretty exciting the first time I heard that Huli was doing a song with Mannie Fresh. If Mannie charged him the same rates he charges everyone else then Huli definitely has the kind of cash he says he does.
Nature's Problem f/ Lil Flip - "We From The Streets" (mp3)
Nature's Problem f/ Lil Flip - "It Ain't Nothin'" (mp3)
I'll put up both these tracks in case Gov't Names co-founder and Lil Flip superfan Dylan K. wants to check them out. They both originally appeared on Nature's Problem's 2002 album Welcome To Baltimore City (one of these days I'm gonna do a flashback post about NP's old albums) and were produced by Young Sears, who also did some tracks on Flip's Underground Legend ("From The Streets" even has the same wah-wah sound as "The Way We Ball"!). "It Ain't Nothin'" got some play on 92Q around 2004 when "Game Over" was blowing up, but the song was already a couple years old by then. I wonder if Ostro from Nature's Problem is ever gonna do a solo project.
Labels: Huli Shallone, mixtape/album review, mp3