The Internet feels pretty bleak today, but a couple of new songs from local artists caught my eye:
Rapper XO will drop his album One One Ten this Friday—that'd be Jan. 1, 2010, natch—at a release party at K Street Lounge, and he just leaked a track called "Blah Blah." It's produced by Oddisee, one of XO's [...]
After a very promising (and very free) test release of the clean version several months ago, Diamond District's In Da Ruff is officially available in stores today, with cuss words restored and bonus tracks. Though it isn't getting the national acclaim that Wale is, the trio of emcees XO, yU and rapper/producer Oddisee have cut [...]
Yesterday the Washington Post ran a large feature on DC hip hop.* Chris Richards' piece offers a cursory "why hasn't DC rap blown up?" history and intro as well as short profiles of Wale, XO, Kingpen Slim, Tabi Bonney, Phil Ade and producers Best Kept Secret. It's a well meaning and pretty efficient overview, but [...]
Mp3 blogs are teetering on the edge of irrelevance. Thanks to Twitter an artist can cut out that middleman completely and deliver new songs directly to fans and followers. From the studio to the tweets in just minutes. The DC hip hop community in particular has been taking great advantage of this approach. Here [...]
Benji, Gorda Brega, Toney Night, XO & Syxx – "Uptown's Finest 2"
Carty Yeah, Southeast Slim, Whitefolkz, Kingpin Slim, Mo Chips – "Hottest In The Hood (DMV Remix)"
Two brand new posse cut primers on the ever burgeoning DC rap scene.
First up is "Uptown's Finest 2," the self-explanatory title track from the forthcoming EP of the [...]
Much hyped Interscope signee and self proclaimed DC RAP AMBASSADOR Wale will be rocking the 9:30 Club on Wednesday night, backed, as usual, by inimitable go-goers UCB. We're just going to pretend that his atrocious Lady Gaga collaboration never happened.
Equally talented but less blogged about about locals Tabi Bonney and X.O. (of Diamond District) [...]
Diamond District (geddit?) is a hip hop supergroup consisting of underground favorites XO, YU, and Oddisee. Their debut album In The Ruff dropped yesterday and is a nice slice of boom-bap rap that nods subtly to Marley Marl and Pete Rock with one foot in the present tense. The clean version is available for free [...]
New Wale Single, DC Graffiti, DMV Awards, Lyriciss and more!
Realmatic is the latest collection of material by DC's own Hip Hop upstart and my nominee for the City Paper Best of DC 2009 Local Hip Hop Artist: X.O. For the unfamiliar, the kid from uptown Georgia Ave has been tearing up the scene like pro for a few years now dropping a series of [...]
While the recording industry is busy lamenting the death of their business model at the hands of the Internet, a number of local hip-hop artists have found a way turn this market threat into an opportunity. Free download mixtapes (which are neither mixed nor on tape, discuss...) have been catapulting artists such as Wale, Ra [...]
