Ex-X Factor
There are only about 75 seconds of the song "Million Miles Away" in this new clip from RatheMC, and while it's labeled as an official video, it's hard to see it as anything but an easygoing placeholder while she gears up for whatever is next. Check the full version from her Grace Jones Experiment mixtape here. Besides being a soulful, [...]
Standout Track: No. 2, "Neva Go Back," which portrays hip-hop and go-go as two well-acquainted ladies who aren’t afraid to get their freak on together. "They’ve been pullin' this move since Sugar Hill and Chuck Brown," raps Dre the Gypc (pronounced "gypsy") over a groove built on Teddy Pendergrass’ 1979 quiet-storm classic, "Come Go With [...]
Farma Wesley
Here's what we know about Farma Wesley: He's from Woodbridge but claims Liberian heritage; he's got a righteous high-top fade; he says he's got a mixtape called Farmageddon coming in May; and his Golden Era-influenced rhyme style bends toward extended metaphor and personal revelation. "White girl upset when I don't text her/She talk too [...]
The McNugget as a Trope
Last week we gave a shout out to Chi Chi Monet, the 9-year-old girl who, while rapping about childhood obesity, made a reference to giving up Big Macs because of their caloric content. I questioned whether any 9-year-old would actually choose a Big Mac over McNuggets; one of my City Paper [...]
The Rockville pop/rock band once known as Hotspur (whose ambitions and travails were described in depth in this 2007 City Paper story) has evolved into another pop/rock band known as The Static. The dudes commissioned a slick stop-motion video for the Maroon 5-ish song "So Wrong," and it has generated more than 600,000 YouTube hits since [...]
Review: Louie V Mob’s New World Order
Master P was once rich and famous enough to sign Snoop Dogg at the height of his Death Row commercial success, install a gold elevator in his estate, and perform at the VMAs. His brand was No Limit, an aggressively New Orleans-based and DIY label that transformed his family [...]
Catching up With Deuce Ducartier’s Rap and Roll
“I liked when [Creed] dropped ‘With Arms Wide Open’ and ‘My Sacrifice,’” says Alexandria-born rapper Deuce Ducartier. “It was one of the most returned albums of all time but there’s just something about the singer’s voice.”
It’s a darkly cold Tuesday and Deuce is giving me an overview of [...]
If you are still unfamiliar with Heavy Breathing, a band that stems from The Apes, then this new song "Wander Longer" is an epic summation of why you should get down with these people.* Whatever they do, it tends to involve the grooveness of funk and the rockness of punk, and the end results are [...]
Purple Reign
The Baltimore Ravens have some issues. They were the Cleveland Browns until 1996, so the Midwest grapples with their very existence. Catch them live, and you’ll see a franchise that revels in its bad-guy persona: only the bruising defensive players get player intros; you’ll hear three straight Rick Ross tracks and then Metallica during [...]
Humane’s Society
Between tuition checks at Hampton University and later Delaware State, 24 year-old Triangle, Va., transplant Sterling Fitzpatrick decided to focus the entirety of his brain power on hip-hop. Mom and dad disapproved. “It’s hard because your parents believe music is worthless,” says Fitzpatrick, known on scattered and promising mp3s as Humane, “It doesn’t help [...]
