... a couple of things contributed to me leaving. I don't think we were on the same page as far as goals, and I feel like communication could have been a lot better. I just felt like it was time to move on. And luckily I was blessed with some major offers as far as bands. Of course in the end I chose RE (Rare Essence).

Cal, who lately has been pushing his rap ghostwriting enterprise, Rhymesolvers Unit, says he sees himself as a "missing piece" for Rare Essence—which is probably more a comment on where RE wants to go, and not where it's been already. (There's video of Cal's first official gig with RE, and an iTunes single.)

Wale always seems to find himself embroiled in the lamest controversies. It would seem that the cost of claiming to put an entire city on your back means you're gonna have the entire city on your back.

His latest video, "Pretty Girls," debuted on BET earlier this week and recieved a lot of flack in blog comments and on Twitter for featuring a cast of almost exclusively light-skinned and white girls. Wale & Co. responded to the complaints by rushing the release of this Tabi Bonney-directed clip for the iTunes-only bonus track "My Sweetie," which features ample dark-skinned girls. Crisis averted. Though I'm going to take this opportunity to suggest a Wale remake of Del's "Dark Skin Girls," to fully heal the wounds.

And to revisit another people-complain-on-the-Internet-about-Wale scandal: Even after all the near-beef, Backyard vocalist Weensey is not visible in the "Pretty Girls" video, despite being the guy singing the chorus. Adding insult to injury, the iconic hip-hop blog NahRight.com referred to him as "Weeney" when it first posted the video. Readers eventually corrected the error.

In other DMV video news: Uncontroversial but very dope uptown rapper XO just dropped a video for the Raheem Devaughn-assisted single "Take Home."

Wale is back in the (ahem) news today, as the subject of much Twitter and blog gossip. His current single "Pretty Girls" is a reinterpretation a longtime Backyard Band standard, and it looks like Interscope is about to give a big push, video treatment and all. Except, according to the internets, the go-go outfit is/was calling for a boycott of the record, either stemming from royalty issues or the fact that he shot the video without them. A screencap of this vague Facebook status from BYB sparked the conversation and Wale responded thusly.

Earlier this afternoon, Wale denied the rumors on WKYS: "Myself and Backyard Band are extremely happy about the success of the record… we are actually shooting the video on Thursday night with some members of the band." Twitter reactions from members of both Backyard and TCB (the band behind Wale's 2007 similarly go-go tinged single "Ice Cream Girl") have since been deleted.

Update: Backyard's Big G just called into KYS: "it wasn't never no beef, it was just some miscommunication about the situation on the video… [BYB vocalist] Weensey's gonna be in the video, Wale and them working out the kinks." Crisis averted. Move along, nothing to see here.

For those of you who don't have nice enough shoes to get into Love but still want to see rapps tomorrow night ex-Cash Money Millionaire and lifelong Hot Boy B.G. will be holding down DC Star along side Backyard, UCB and Reaction. Check out some classic B Gizzle clips after the jump.

In eight years of DC flea market and junk store hopping I've encountered all sorts of strangeness from jars of urine to bongs made from the skulls of monkeys (I am not even making this up) but as far as local muscial ephemera goes nothing can really top this this confusing pen drawing of Rare Essence's Go-Go Mickey. Clipped from the "thank you's" page of a 1993 Bishop Mcnamara yearbook young Damon Lowry depicts the heralded conga drummer as some sort of freakishly muscular and slightly sweaty Polo clad Mickey Mouse. I have no idea why this was at all relevant to a high school yearbook but it's pretty incredible none the less. After the jump is some footage of the actual Go-Go Mickey backing up Backyard.

Atlanta based emcee Gucci Mane is not on Facebook or Twitter. His Myspace is a label curated holder space mostly advertising an eighteen month old album that, by all rational accounts, was a flop. And yet, strictly though word of mouth, he's become the most popular rapper in the South and probably the country. Or at least in those corners of the country where rap music still holds cultural cachet. Last Friday night (5/8) was his debut performance in one such corner, Washington D.C., as part of the week-long celebration of Wire star/Backyard Band frontman Big G's birthday party. (Forgive the delayed quasi review, this writer has seemingly lost an entire week of his life in Gucci Land. Pause.)

As a live performer, Gucci is not outstanding but considerably better than he needs to be. He leans on the all too common live rap show crutch of simply rhyming over his own vocal tracks but he does it well enough that it doesn't seem like a crutch. He exudes stoicism, barely moving but paradoxically breaking a sweat (understandable, DC Star was a sauna and at least one unconscious, presumably heat stricken body was hauled off the floor by security) as he mechanically runs down nihilistic dope boy hits like "Make The Trap Aye," "Photoshoot" and "I'm A Dog". Yes, hits. Gucci is the last underground rap star standing and even with no major label promotion much of the room knew every word before he said it. The only glimmer of personality Gucci showed was upon closing with a heartfelt and reverent thanks to DC. He then exited stage right, only to quickly announce a middle school style "PSYCH!" and run back out to the tune of "Trap House." The encore is a rarity in hip hop, and its presence implies a certain unspoken dedication to the craft that has permeated and probably assisted Gucci's meteoric rise.

The week since has, coincidentally, been something of a coronation for Gucci, turning up with both an XXL magazine cover and his long awaited, first post prison mixtape, the aptly titled Writing On The Wall. For those of you playing the proverbial rap stock market, Gucci is the smart money for '09. Think 50 Cent or Lil Wayne before your grandmother knew their names.

Here's a single blurry photo I was able to take with the camera I snuck into Star against their wishes and took to spite my own incompetence. Note, if you can, Gucci's half forerarm length diamond piece looking like something out of medieval times. Show money must be nice.

TCB opened and basically tore the house to pieces with their trademark bounce beat go-go. Their momentum was squandered by a string of unidentified competent rappers. Backyard followed and delivered something of a trunucated set, but delivered none the less, rocking fan favorites like "Keep It Gangsta."