Labels: A-Class, flyer, Ogun, Rams Head Live, Saleem

The Baltimore Scene held the Baltimore Crown Awards at 5 Seasons on Sunday, and I decided to stay home with my son that night, but I ended winning a "golden pen" award to match my "best blog/website" award from last year. So thanks to them and the voters, and congratulations to the other winners, full list below:

Hip Hop Artist of The Year: Mully Man
Poet of the Year: Taalam Acey
Vocalist of the Year: Chyna Doll
Band of the Year: Soul Cannon
Mixtape of the Year: Comp "The Man with the Hand 2"
Photographer of the Year: Kelly Connelly
Graphic Designer of the Year: Skarr Akbar
Blog/Website of The Year: www.allbmorehiphop.com
Studio of the Year: Architect Studios
Manager of the Year: EC (Frank Lewis)
Promoter of the Year: Tay Tay of Tayland Promotions
Under the Radar Awards: Tonio from da top
Most Likely to Succeed Award: Mully Man
Best New Artist: Black Sunn
Best Live Venue: Rams Head Live
Best Poetry Venue: The 5 Seasons/Warm Wednesdays
Best Hip Hop Venue: Club Reality

Golden Awards: Awarded to artists that take it beyond being artists and use their talent and energy to contribute to the scene/community

Golden Mic: Ogun
Golden Pen: Al shipley
Golden Stage: 5th L

Special Appreciation Award: Ahk of 88.9
Special Contribution Award: Lisa Stant

Baltimore Legend Awards
Inductees to The Baltimore Hall of Fame
(Joining: Fertile Ground, Labtekwon, Taalam Acey, D Chase, and Ogun)

Mr. Wilson (RIP), K Swift (RIP), Vicious V, Sonny Brown, Lo Key, Brown Fish, Comp, and Skarr Akbar.

Labels: 5 Seasons, ALLBMOREHIPHOP.COM, announcements, Architects, Comp, Mullyman, Ogun, Rams Head Live, Skarr Akbar, Soul Cannon, Tayland Promotions, The Baltimore Scene, The Black Sunn, Tonio

Wye Oak - "Dance My Pain Away" (mp3)
Mickey Free - "That I Do" (mp3)
Splice Today, a great site that I've been doing some writing for, recently released its second compilation album for free on the site. Baltimore Does Baltimore, Part 1 is, as you can probably tell from the title, a collection curated by Zach Kaufman of Baltimore musicians covering songs by other Baltimore musicians, mostly people from the indie rock scene. However, there are two tracks on here that worthy of noting here on Gov't Names, and both involve Wye Oak, who are probably my favorite band in Baltimore of the past couple years. On one track, rapper Mickey Free (of Height With Friends and the Baltimore All-Rap Round Robin) remixes Wye Oak's song "That I Do" and adds a verse to it. But the really exciting thing is that Wye Oak themselves worked up a cover of Rod Lee's stone classic "Dance My Pain Away." On the face of it, a mellow rock band covering a Baltimore club song is the kind of thing that might easily make me cringe; rock artists doing tongue-in-cheek of covers of raunchy rap songs have become a really awful annoying cliche in the past 10 years, and it kinda irritates me that Kaufman references one, Ben Folds's "Bitches Ain't Shit," when describing Wye Oak's track. What they do with "Dance My Pain Away" is a million times better than that, and totally respectful of the original song, which has a lot of melody and pathos to begin with, and I think them just being from Baltimore probably gives them the right understanding of it and club music to pull it off. Plus I'm really just excited because there is probably no person in the world who loves both Wye Oak and "Dance My Pain Away" as much as I do.

Labels: Baltimore club, Mickey Free, mp3, Rod Lee, Splice Today

Labels: 5 Seasons, Arsonists Camp, battle, flyer, G Major, Ms. Stress

Labels: Ab Rock, flyer, Mania Music Group

Who Got Next, the latest Baltimore hip hop DVD that I'm apparently going to be on is having a release party next weekend -- they just taped my interview yesterday, and I think for once I actually managed to say some shit, hope it all comes out well.

Labels: announcements, DVD, flyer, Si-Notes

Bossman f/ Scola - "U Already Know" (mp3)
Bossman's finally got a new single out to follow up "Break Me Off," featuring Scola formerly of Dru Hill. Video coming soon, getting played on 92Q right now.

Labels: Bossman, mp3, One Up Entertainment, Scola

Labels: flyer, Teop

DJ Bless f/ Wordsmith - "Heavy Metal Mics" (mp3)
Wordsmith - "Braggin' Rights" (mp3)
Here's some new music from the ever prolific Wordsmith, a DJ Bless-produced track featuring him, and his own new solo single produced by Rafpak, from the Overdue & Underrated mixtape dropping on December 7th. His album with Chubb Rock, Bridging The Gap, is on iTunes now but is finally getting a national release in stores on November 17th (although I've seen copies in the Sound Garden here in Baltimore already). Also, Wordsmith is performing at Heavy Hitters 7 this Friday.

Labels: mp3, Wordsmith

Labels: flyer, G.E.M./Tha Plague, Lava Lounge

Labels: flyer, For The People Entertainment, Jade Fox, Minlus McCracken

Labels: Black Hole Rock Club, flyer, Wordsmith

Cutthroat - "We Are God (live at Mobtown Studios)" (mp3)
My good friends at Mobtown Studios in Charles Village have been doing a series of 'microshows' over the past year, with Baltimore musicians giving intimate performances for an in-studio audience. And a couple weeks ago Cutthroat from For The People Entertainment became the first hip hop act to do a microshow, with live musicians backing him up on guitar and percussion and keyboards. And it came out really well, I think they're excited to get more hip hop in the mix in the future if anyone else is game for something a little different. Here's one of my favorite songs from that night, but you can download or stream the whole set at the Mobtown site. Catch FTP opening for Raekwon at Bourbon St. next week.

Labels: Cutthroat, For The People Entertainment, Mobtown Studios, mp3

Labels: DJ Booman, flyer, Mullyman, video

This is NME's video for the songs "Going Hard" and "B More Careful," never heard these cats before and it's kinda low budget but I like it, although the contrast between the two songs is so dramatic it's almost funny.

Labels: video

DJ Excel - "Raven Stomp (The Underdog Mix)" (mp3)
I first heard this track back in January, but now that football season's in full swing again it seems like a good time to jam DJ Excel's Baltimore club Ravens anthem. I like this, really cool synths and aggressive percussion.

Labels: Baltimore club, Bmore Original Records, DJ Excel, mp3

Labels: Bourbon St, flyer, For The People Entertainment, Steez Promo

E Major f/ Kane Mayfield and DJ Blak Majik - "UnHeard" (mp3)
This is what the fuck I'm talking about, E Major reaching out to Mania Music Group for a grimy new single with Kane on the mic, DJ Blak Majik on the cuts, and BeaLack and Headphones on the beat, really kinda surprised me how vicious they both got on this. Listen to E Major's first verse, I love that line "noone's selling records so how the fuck we sellin' out?" Everyone in this town that's jumping on bandwagons and dickriding trends as if it's gonna make them famous needs to hear this shit and sit and think for a minute. Brandon also wrote about this song on No Trivia.

Labels: E Major, Kane, Mania Music Group, mp3, Under Sound Music

Legendary Baltimore house diva Ultra Naté is releasing her first Baltimore club record, the Things Happen At Night EP, on November 17th with the help of Unruly Records and their stable of producers, and the above video is for the first single, "Faster Faster Pussycat (Let's Go!)" featuring King Tutt.

Labels: Baltimore club, King Tutt, Unruly Records, video

Ron Rico f/ Skarr Akbar, Mike Malachi and Billo - "If You Sleep, You Better Wake Up" (mp3)
Ron Rico has put out records of his own before, both of Baltimore club music and of low key instrumental hip hop, but now he's getting ready to release his first compilation album featuring a variety of MCs, This Is What I Live For and this here's the first leak, really dope shit.

Labels: Billo, Mike Malachi, mp3, Ron Rico, Skarr Akbar