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 [...]

Slow news day, slow news day. But there are a few musical goodies circulating that are pegged to Martin Luther King Day. On Friday, I mentioned that local producer Jon Kwest released the moombahton edit "Drum Major," which applies some 108 bpm to King's haunting "Drum Major Instinct" sermon.
D.C. rapper yU included the empowerment jam [...]

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 [...]

I didn't realize how great a year it's been for music in D.C. until I started compiling this list. While I didn't hear many landmark, career-defining albums in 2011, there were a ton of great songs from both young and veteran artists. Whatever D.C.'s reputation, there's a healthy community of smart, ambitious musicmakers in this [...]

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 [...]

On the cover of this week's issue is our collaboration with the Catalogue for Philanthropy: Greater Washington, wherein we recommend some important (and mostly tiny) nonprofits worthy of your charitable giving. This includes some art picks, like the African Continuum Theatre Co., the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Step Afrika!, and WSC Avant Bard.
Chris Klimek leads [...]

I'm a little surprised by yU's new song, "Disturbed," released today through the Mello Music Group label. Not that the Suitland MC isn't capable of recording a Halloween-themed song; but he's always been the most straightforward member of the Diamond District trio, opting for understated rhymes of humility and struggle.
On "Disturbed," yU finds a way [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]