
The City Paper's 2008 Best Of Baltimore Issue is out today. The categories I selected winners for and wrote blurbs for this year are: Best Summer Jam: Mullyman's "Party Walk" Best Local Album: Beyond Hamsterdam: Baltimore Tracks From "The Wire" Best Female MC: Symphony of G.E.M. Best Male MC: Ogun Best Hip-Hop DJ: P-Funk Best Beatmaker: DJ Booman Best Club DJ: Scottie B [...]

In the past month I've finally started occasionally taking photos to accompany some of my posts on the City Paper's Noise blog at http://noise.citypaper.com (with asterisks next to posts that include pictures by me). My latest posts included: The Club Beat with Dirty Nation Entertainment , Teop with Mullyman (pictured above), Comp, Skarr Akbar, Little Clayway, Huli Shallone, Heavy Gold, Al Great, SL Danga and 1st Family @ Sonar *, 2 Time Quitters, Raspberry Campaign and Engine @ the Ottobar *, Pearl Jam and Ted Leo @ the Verizon Center , and [...]

Mullyman - The Return (DJ Gemini/Major League Unlimited) I feel like Mullyman has come a long way in the three years since Mullymania , going from kinda being known for things like beef and getting famous rappers to guest on his tracks, to being known for all the right reasons, consistently dropping good music and putting on strong live performances, he's really earned his spot. At this point he could drop a whole CD of just recent singles and guest appearances, and that's kinda what this is, give or take a few new [...]

I posted on Government Names about the death of Mr. Wilson of JI-900 back in the week the news first broke, but in this week's Baltimore City Paper I wrote a proper remembrance of the man, who I didn't know well, but knew that he was important enough to the community that there should be some kind of acknowledgement of his passing in the media. It's been very touching, going to shows recently at 5 Seasons and last night at Sonar, to see so many people dedicating songs to him and saying a few [...]

\ I am so good to y'all. I have three - count 'em - new songs for your ears. Granted you probably have at least one of 'em already, but still. You get the point. Isn't new, free music the best thing ever? Other than a paycheck so you can go buy some new, non-free music, that is. This first song has been all over every blog in the universe already ( Disco Dust being the first, as per usual), but I like it so I might as well post it up anyways. I've already told y'all [...]

This just arrived in my inbox this morning, so I thought I'd share. I'm thinking that the tsunami of hope is not quite high enough yet that we will be hearing an official presidential campaign song from a Bmore rapper. But how about using it in some targeted ads? Just the fact that you might stop and consider the idea says something about the current climate, doncha think? When Barack Obama is president, all radio stations, even NPR, will be required to play a certain minimum number of hours per week of hip-hop. [...]

Danger - 14h54 (discobelle.net) Klaxons - It's Not Over (Skream Remix) (agentlovelette.livejournal.co m) Santogold feat. Spank Rock - Shove It (Switch Remix) (gorillavsbear.blogspot.com) Kate Nash - Pumpkin Soup (fluxblog.org) Vampire Weekend - Ladies of Cambridge (thefader.com) Radiohead - Nude (Amplive Remix) (analoggiant.blogspot.com) Mullyman - Oh Baltimore (brandonsoderberg.blogspot.com ) Dimmer - Smoke (moistworks.com) [...]