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 [...]
This fall, producer Oddisee roamed abroad, touring Europe with Mello Music labelmates The Left and Apollo Brown and performing material from his upcoming solo album, People Hear What They See. On the surface, Oddisee’s recent schedule seems like a walk in the park for the busy Upper Marlboro native, who arranges songs and makes beats for [...]
Released in 1998, Soul Survivor was the grand coronation of producer Pete Rock's already-stellar career, a large-scale album equally celebrated for its imposing instrumentals and heavyweight guest list (the Wu-Tang Clan, Black Thought of The Roots, and Common all had verses on the project). Yet despite the star-studded cast, Pete was the clear centerpiece, as his beats [...]
Put Away Your GPS: This summer, Largo hip-hop MC and producer Oddisee released his excellent 10-song album Rock Creek Park, a largely instrumental homage to the sights and sensations found in the D.C. area. Yesterday, Prefix assembled a Google map accompaniment to the album that fleshes out his local references. After all, it is still possible [...]
"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 [...]
Nitpick: NBC4's report—cribbed from us, perhaps?—on the closing of Durkl's studio at 443 I Street NW has a couple snags. No. 1: 443 I Street NW is more Mt. Vernon Square than Chinatown. No. 2: That space has been active as a kind of art-punk venue for about a decade, but has it been a [...]
Looking at DTMD, you wouldn't think they were a hip-hop duo, much less one of the promising young rap groups in the D.C. region.
Dunc is a scrawny white kid, but his thumping beats show an affinity for '60s classic soul and the '90s percussive boom bap. Toine, whom we last heard trading bars with Oddisee [...]
The last time we heard an X.O. solo recording—the celebratory One.One.Ten, released on Jan. 1 of last year—the Northwest D.C. native seemed comfortable with his place among the region's hip-hop elite.
One year later, X.O. sounds restless on Monumental II, a 17-track mixtape of familiar soul samples, reflective anecdotes, and aggressive lyricism released today. Monumental II is the [...]
For Oddisee, Rock Creek Park is significant for a few reasons. On a personal level, the MC and producer says, it represents the road less traveled, an alternate route removed from the hustle of city life. The Upper Marlboro native rode his bike there as a kid.
Musically, the park represents another notch in his creative [...]
DJ J-Scrilla is no stranger to the mixtape concept, whether he's releasing his own compilations or promoting those from his peers. From the late '90s to the early aughts, Scrilla's tapes paired veteran MCs with lesser-known talent. "I want my tapes to be more like 'digs' for the listener, rather than a rack of joints they [...]
