TV Killed the Radio Star Rapper DDm, previously known as Dappa Dan Midas (though everybody called him Midas) just put out his EP, TV Killed the Radio Star. In a little over 16 and a half minutes, DDm impersonates a rowdy group of kindergartners, raps over the theme from Martin, concocts a maddeningly catchy...
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Tags: DDm, midas
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King of Pops As the Brown F.I.S.H. frontman promised when I interviewed him for City Paper in April, OOH dropped his first solo mixtape at the end of May, on the occasion of his 35th birthday. The King of Pops: The James Evans Mixtape even opens with a callback to that article, with the...
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Tags: brown f.i.s.h., OOH
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via MySpace Uncle Jesse, club music boundary-pusher and maker of some of the only tolerable moombahton out there (see “Boat Shoes”), just put out “Samson,” an excellent though not exactly categorizable electro track. Let’s start with the drums, which could pound like every other dance song and be just fine, but instead kick and flutter...
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Tags: uncle jesse
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King Tutt DJ King Tutt’s Say Hello to The Bad Guy mix is an hour of unabashed house and electro. No Baltimore club productions. And none of Tutt’s own electro work either. Just 19 tracks of the cheap, strong stuff. Big booming songs from guys like Tiesto, Laidback Luke, and the Bingo Players. Also:...
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Tags: chris brown, king tutt
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ThEEEE MiXtApEEEE DJ Pierre just released ThEEEE MiXtApEEEE (not to be confused with Blaqstarr’s brand new The Mixtape) and unlike the multiple-artist, old classics-meet-new club hits mixed CDs he’s known for, this one’s 30 minutes of original productions. This release comes at an important point for the young producer, just a few months after...
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Tags: dj pierre, mixtape
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Wonderful From DJ Equalizer’s “Kill Barney” to Johnny Blaze’s “Spongebob Squarepants Remix” to DJ Excel’s “That’s What A Pimp Does,” club music’s always been really good at grabbing hold of some goofball phenomenon and making into a hilarious, hypnotic dance track. So now, there’s a Charlie Sheen club song. It was only a matter...
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Tags: bmore originals, charlie sheen, jon kwest
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Crossfaded Bacon? Uncle Jesse put together this Best Of Rod Lee mix for the Philly internet label Crossfaded Bacon (which also released Uncle Jesse’s Glen Tech EP). It’s a near hour of spare break-beats, hilarious/filthy lyrics, and lots and lots of Lee’s inimitable throaty shout-singing. And speaking of shout-singing, not sure how a Rod...
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Tags: rod lee, uncle jesse
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KaneMayfield Last Thursday’s Mobtown Studios microshow from Mania Music Group’s Kane Mayfield and a live band—guitarist Karlos Brickhouse, keyboardist Dennard Watson, drummer Brandon Segar, and trombonist Patrick Harrison—is now available for download at the Mobtown Studios web site. Kane begins with a snappy, near Neptunes-like take on his recent single “Wreck,” and from there...
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Tags: brown f.i.s.h., kane mayfield, mania music group, mobtown studios
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Through the Wire Kil, a beatmaker and a former host of Strictly Hip Hop, has put together a surprisingly non-shticky concept album based around The Wire. On his Bandcamp page—where Through the Wire can be downloaded for free—Kil calls the tape “a perfect marriage between two of my loves, making beats and the HBO...
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Tags: kil, the wire, through the wire
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DJ Excel Don’t know too much about this Phil Adé character, other than that he’s one of those nimble, excited young rappers really repping this whole super-nebulous “DMV” movement, but Bmore Original’s DJ Excel turned Adé’s “Disco Flow” into, well—actually, not all that sure how to explain this one. Excel’s made a club song...
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Tags: bmore originals, dj excel, phil ade
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Day in the Life Sean Touré doesn’t really give guest rappers Kev Brown and Ab Rock a chance on this one. He kicks off “A Day in the Life” with a verse that captures not only his struggles as a musician, but as a regular dude trying to make it through the day with...
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Tags: ab rock, kev brown, Sean Touré
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The machine doesn't know what's comin' Mullyman’s new mixtape, Mullyman vs. the Machine, is sponsored by noted mixtape shouter DJ Whoo Kid, and in New York last night, there was a party and performance hosted by Angela Yee, morning DJ for New York’s Power 105.1. (Reports of Jimmy Jones dancing to “No Hands” should...
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Tags: dj booman, dj whoo kid, jimmy jones, Mbahlievable, mullyman
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Chipmunk Vocals and Heartbreak Like the spacey, electronic stuff that snuck onto The Major Major Mixtape and the recent “For The Win,” this “lost” track continues the straight rapping over kinda-crazy beats style E Major’s been all about as of late. “Since You Been Gone” came about when E Major handed over an unreleased...
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Tags: e major, eddie, undersound
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Ultra was here first This new one from Ultra Naté’s upcoming album Hero Worship is exactly what to expect from the Baltimore house diva: a big, bright celebration of all-night dancing and favorite songs, anchored by an unabashed house thump and some disco strings. About the only thing “modern” here is a polite touch...
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Tags: house music, Paul Oakenfold, ultra nate
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Somehow, we missed out on talking about James Nasty’s The Truth About James Nasty when it was released in early January. This pause tape-like mix of the Moustache Party DJ’s original productions, and a few from his club producer peers like Murder Mark and Benny Stixx, is a breezy, juiced-up journey through club music...
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Tags: baltimore club, james nasty
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Dan Deacon + Matmos This happened at last fall’s MoogFest in North Carolina: two improv jams between Dan Deacon and Matmos’ Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt, released yesterday via the indie live-recording vault Daytrotter. Warned by a comment from Schmidt on the Daytrotter posting that the second track “*really* isn’t very good,” I went...
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Tags: dan deacon, matmos, moogfest
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By Peter Quinn “1-2-3 Bad,” the new song from Thank You, is like a surf instrumental broken into tiny pieces. All the excited riffs and rolling grooves are there, and it eventually builds to a harmonized chant of some sort, but all the simple rewards of rock have been cleverly rearranged to bump into...
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Tags: golden worry, thank you
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soulstrut.com Over at the vinyl collector message board Soul Strut, DJ Kool Breez—a former Unruly Records club producer from the early/mid-’90s era, local beatmaker, and all-around record obsessive—dropped a genre-spanning, all-vinyl mix titled Groove Stew. The focus is breaks and beats (or “braeks” as record nerds call them), both well known and obscure (or...
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Tags: dj kool breez, unruly records
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