In September 2010, Prince George's County native Substantial and Seattle producer Marcus D. released their Bop Alloy project, a greasy hip-hop album more suited for adult contemporary radio than urban airwaves. Sure, piano chords, string arrangements, and horn solos aren't foreign to rap, but the abundance of such instruments made songs like "Chillaxation" and "Still [...]
Once upon a time, rapping in D.C. wasn't so cool. In the 1990s, long before artists like Wale and Tabi Bonney put D.C. hip-hop on a national stage, local MCs couldn't spit a rhyme without being deemed a New York wanna-be.
Instead, aspiring rappers not named Asheru, Head-Roc, or Black Indian spit their rhymes alongside prominent go-go bands [...]
A lot of releases caught my ear this year, including projects from Kokayi, lowercase letters, DTMD, Jon Laine, and others. At the same time, the always-endless stream of mixtapes made it damn near impossible to catch everything.
For the second year in a row, I voted in WKYS's list of the hottest local rappers. (So far, Nos. 3-10 have [...]
Arts Desk has written a lot about Kokayi over the years, because he's talented and prolific and all that jazz. The D.C. rapper/singer/producer even did a Snow Day Session. But his latest gambit—offering a free house concert to the 1,400th person who Likes him on Facebook—seemed a bit outré, even for a guy who is [...]
At first glance, D.C. rapper SmCity seems all confused in this video for "Twilight," a track from his upcoming The Indie Life: Hate, Love & Money. He's sportin' a limited-edition Nats hat, but that hometown W kinda gets lost in all those Brooklyn Bridge shots. And his sideman is Brooklyn MC Skyzoo. Why shoot the [...]
If you know Kokayi, then you know he's a proud D.C. dude with the city slang and rich historical knowledge to prove it.
But if you follow his music, then you know he isn't boxed in by hip-hop or go-go, opting instead for pulsating compositions that blend rock, pop, and EDM into the mix.
His stellar Robots [...]
"The music industry has imploded," a sarcastic male voice says seconds into Poem-Cees' new album, Everything You've Always Wanted. "The economy sucks, and you want Poem-Cees to release a record now."
Just when that statement was recorded is a mystery. For whatever reason, the D.C. trio of D.P., Black Picasso, and DJ Stylus recorded this full-length [...]
After months of delays, DMV emcee Pro'Verb today released his While You're Waiting... mixtape, his first full-length project since 2008. The tape, a 14-track collection of mostly original work, also finds the young MC flexing his lyrical dexterity on "Exhibit P," a remake of Jay Electronica's monstrous "Exhibit C" from two years ago.
Elsewhere, he and [...]
It's lunch time at Suitland High School and someone's pounding a makeshift beat on the wooden cafeteria tables. Truth Hall and I have just finished our semi-regular routine: debating about some off-brand hip-hop album, then finding a place to rap within the vast Prince George's County school.
I'm on my usual bullshit—rhyming about nothing in particular [...]
In October, Kokayi dropped Robots & Dinosaurs, a captivating opus that discussed childhood love, suicide, and agism with refreshing maturity. Now, the Northeast D.C. resident has enlisted eight notable producers to recreate the LP. On the remix project, those chilling themes have been repackaged under bouncy dance beats, resulting in an upbeat sound, even if the message remains [...]
