This week the Baltimore City Paper publishes its annual Big Music Issue , and my story in it, Knights of the Round Robin , is about the 5th annual All Rap Round Robin that will be taking place on August 19th at Floristree. I attended the show the last two years and am really excited about the additions to this year's lineup, could be their best yet. For the story I spoke to Height, OOH, Jones, Mickey Free, The Plural MC, King Rhythm and members of Soul Cannon, Mania Music Group, Disturbed Individuals and [...]
I wrote a post on the City Paper's Noise blog about the exciting lineup that was just announced for the 5th Annual All Rap Round Robin happening in Baltimore in August.
I wrote a post on the Noise blog about "Hometown," the great new Dukeyman-produced single by OOH from Brown F.I.S.H., from his upcoming solo EP The Big 7 .
Kane Mayfield f/ Jahiti - "F.I.S.H. Bowl (live at Mobtown Studios)" (mp3) My friends at Mobtown Studios have been doing monthly 'microshows' for the past couple years where they have a local artist come into the studio and perform a special set for a small audience, and the studio records the performance and makes it available for free online. The latest one was the Kane Mayfield Microshow , for which the Mania Music Group rapper assembled a live band and did new arrangements of a whole bunch of his songs. The performance culminates [...]
Skarr Akbar - Pursuit of Happyness 2: The Introduction of Stephen Tatum (Akbar Enterprize) This is a classic example of why I get frustrated with the laziness of mixtape titles -- Skarr Akbar is one of the most tirelessly creative rappers and producer in Baltimore, but when it came to put a name on one of his best mixtape albums earlier this year, he just nicked the title from a random Will Smith movie. And since it turned out to be pretty popular, now he's made a sequel, which means that one of Skarr's [...]
This week is the Baltimore City Paper's annual 'Sizzlin' Summer' issue, and I wrote a fun piece that's kind of a playlist of local summer jams . I talked to folks like DJ Booman, E Major, Shaka Pitts, PenDragon, Kane Mayfield and members of Kadman, Jumpcuts, Rapdragons, the Art Department, the Cameron Blake Band and the Out Of Your Head Collective, and they picked songs by Wye Oak, LMS, Skarr Akbar, the Annexx Click, Junkers, the Get Em Mamis, Rhinovirus, Billie Holiday, Celebration, Sri Aurobindo and Brown F.I.S.H. We've even got a player on the CP site where you [...]
OOH f/ Jeneba Suma- "Pink Money" (mp3) Here's the latest solo single by OOH from Brown F.I.S.H.
OOH - "Brotha On The Run" (mp3) Here's a new Dukeyman-produced solo track by OOH from Brown F.I.S.H. that you might enjoy if you checked out the last one from OOH that I posted a couple months ago. Also, Brown F.I.S.H. is playing at the Windup Space this Saturday .
OOH - "Let The Light..." (mp3) OOH from Brown F.I.S.H. sent this song to me describing it as a "holiday single," but really that's a little deceptive. It's actually a funny, mean, ugly-ass rap song that happens to sample The Nutcracker and have some Christmas-related wordplay. All that means is that this will still sound just as good in January, though.
And the hits just keep coming! Or really, songs that for the most part were hits in my mind only, or for a relatively small group of people. I surprised myself, though, when I looked at the whole 100 and realized that almost half the songs were things that had been played on 92Q at some point or another. Mostly club songs, but still, it's nice to think that many songs I've genuinely liked have impacted the station's airwaves, as much flak as people give the station about local artist airplay: 41. The Arabz - [...]
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 [...]
Y'know, it's funny. I've been running this site for over 4 years now, and hearing more and more Baltimore rap every year that I do it, and yet every year I feel less and less qualified to let my opinion be the end-all-be-all that some people treat it as. There's simply too much music, too much variety coming out of this scene for any one person to really fairly judge, but if I'm gonna be the only person that attempts to hear all or most of it, I might as well throw in my two cents, even as I encourage [...]
Brown F.I.S.H. - Bootleg III: F.I.S.H. & Friends... The Mixtape Brown F.I.S.H. is a pretty important group in Baltimore hip hop that I feel like I've never really given enough coverage to on here, partly because a lot of their activity predates this site (I remember seeing them open for Black Sheep way back in '02). Plus, they're really deep into a whole different side of the scene (roots reggae and slam poetry and live R&B bands) that I'm not as into, although I totally respect what they do. In [...]
A message from The Baltimore Scene regarding this Friday's Baltimore Crown awards: 233 (or so ) Bmore people/places and things you should know Congratulations to ALL Baltimore Crown Nominees! After personally sending out thousands of private messages, email blasts, comments, etc. We now have our Baltimore Crown Nominee List. Thank you all for your support. Thank you all that Voted! This is one of the rare awards where it's great to win but it's also great just to be nominated. Out of all the choices of artists, venues, etc in [...]
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