The NBA wasn't the only thing to come back on Christmas. Also that day, DMV rapper KingPen Slim, whose Beam Up mixtape series has made him a formidable presence in the region, dropped his Pass the Roc mixtape, on which he rhymes original verses over various Roc-A-Fella beats.
"Lucifer In A New Suit" finds Slim battle-rapping over [...]
Freeway remembers a time when Philadelphia wasn't a go-to place for hip-hop. Sure, it had acts like The Roots and Beanie Siegel representing the city, but it still didn't get the national attention many felt it deserved. "After years of trying to get on, we felt it was impossible to get a deal in Philly," Freeway [...]
One year ago, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti, killing more than 230,000 people and leaving another 1 million people homeless.
In response to the devastation, promoters here and abroad organized a seemingly endless stream of benefit concerts to aid the country's overwhelming relief efforts. To date, more than $1 billion has been raised for Haiti's earthquake [...]
As 2010 comes to a close, members and observers of the D.C. hip-hop scene are debating who's the hottest MC, and whether or not we have a great one. The year also saw a seemingly endless stream of mixtapes—from D.C. Don Juan and UCB, to Kingpen Slim and Raheem DeVaughn. In 2011, listeners should expect [...]
Your favorite weekly assemblage of D.C. cultural noise cannot be diminished. Put down all those fall previews and dwell in the now, baby, because if you sleep on Far Out vs. Hot Dang, you're snoozin' on life. On the left, as usual, are the mind-bogglers and the head-scratchers—as well as the sweet epiphanies and fond [...]
Good morning! School's been back for Studio Theater for some days now—it's deep in rehearsal for Circle Mirror Transformation—but yesterday was founding Artistic Director Joy Zinoman's last, at least at the helm. WaPo's Jane Horwitz reports that Studio's staff and admirers sent Zinoman off with a string of fetes and some gifts, like a gold watch [...]
If it seems like it's been a quiet month for DC area rap, that's only because every last rapper in the city was waiting until today to drop their tape. First up is Kingpen Slim's long awaited The Beam Up 2. Slim has the best (and most Districty) rap voice in the District [...]
Although D.C.'s Kingpen Slim chose a quaintly gangsterish name, he's been steadily honing his persona into something contemporary and relatively mainstream-friendly. The Twitters? Nicely active. The YouTubes? All day long. The connections? Jim Jones, among others. The artistic partner? Virginia's busy J Buttah. And there's product, always product: The Beam Up II, Slim's latest record, [...]
DMV Rap roundup with new songs from Kingpen Slim, Southeast Slim, Fat Tone & Rizon
Sampling the thought streams of D.C. musicians past and present.
Rob Myers (Fort Knox Five, Thievery Corporation):
-Selecting tracks w/ Raskin for the FK5 set in Bmore @ Solstice. 60 min of hits! On the mic: Asheru, Mustafa, Rootz & Z, it's hard to choose!
-2:40am Frank Mitchell behind the wheel of 1 of 60 extant [...]
