This song’s all over the place, so you’ve undoubtedly heard it, downloaded it, streamed it, and everything from somewhere or another, but there’s a lot to talk about because it’s a signifier of the sound and style of Class’ Coldspring & Alameda album. Like “I’m the Shit”, it’s essentially a Club song at something approaching but not matching the BPMs of most Club songs but its still retains enough of the sound and a not-too-obnoxious amount of auto-tune that I guess everything needs to be on the radio. If Club really infiltrates popular Rap & Bullshit production, the next say, Jamie Foxx album will have a track or two that sound like this and that’s pretty cool.
“Gimme Sum” is some time-travel shit. By the end of the song, you’re sort of so far removed from the opening James Brown grunts and almost drumline drums that you forget that’s how it even began. This seems like a Scottie B specialty, knowing how to patiently tweak each element of a song until even the very same thing thirty seconds in sounds pretty different three minutes and thirty seconds in because there’s now like, some new drum sound or crazy Salsa House breakdown or something dancing around the older sounds.
The hook for Club music, especially when it’s written about for an audience that hasn’t heard much of it before, is first, how fast it is, and second, how explicit it is. While neither of those things are untrue or even really, a bad place to begin priming someone on “Bmore Club”, it’s worth noting how whatever most Club songs are about their explicit-ness. This Scottie B song isn’t enamored with the fact that the hook is “Gimme sum, gimmie sum head” and sure, there’s plenty of stuff like “Watch my ass as its grinding on your dick” stuff, the “dirty” lyrics is sort of just another casual element to the music, not something that a lot of thought is put into. And really, outside of lyrics about fucking and city shout-outs what are Club songs supposed to focus on?
Off Say Wut’s School of Club Rock EP which sounds even more up,up,up, and all “Jock Jams” and shit than his normal productions–there’s even a song on here called “NFL Ho”. This is arena rock Club music…music for the Ravens to win Super Bowls too and stuff.
There’s also a King Tutt song called “Let’s Go” that was made around the same time as this and is even wilder and more trebly and it makes sense for these guys to be interacting on some level…sort of the Technics and Rod Lee of 2000s Club. That same mix of tear the house down Club and bat-shit crazy weirdness like um, making the main sample of this song a frog ribbet croak noise? Because he doesn’t get the same out-of-town love (and doesn’t seem interested in it), Say Wut doesn’t have the name recognition as Blaqstarr but Wut’s probably as equally influential on the new generation of Club DJs and producers. The even faster, more A.D.D sound of the now owes a lot to the guy.
“Samir’s Theme” is one of those Club songs that’s become intertwined into the DNA of newer Club music. You’ll hear part-of-a-second clips of those synth horns in a ton of tracks and mixes and sometimes there’s even a brilliant remix like Say Wut’s “Horn Theme” which’ll always enter iconic status in my brain for wrapping up Rod Lee’s Vol. 5 with one last, regal blast of Club.
This EP, but namely the B-Side and especially “Samir’s Theme”, provide so much the blueprint and seachange that Club’s had over the past few years as a newer generation of producers have really dug-in and established an identity. The sample-less production, the lack of a hook, the sense of it just pummeling you over and over—the days of the Doo-Dew Kidz heart-attack build-up are stretched out to entire mixes, not contained within a song–is how Club in this decade sounds to me: King Tutt, Say Wut, Lil Jay and Blaqstarr when he’s not like, on some other shit altogether.
The B-Side of this builds and builds, with each track and is like a mix in miniature or the feeling of a single “old-school” Club track instead stretched to a couple of tracks. “Crazy Horn” introduces the prominent horns, but it still sounds relatively natural and there’s a Club break shuffle underneath of it, “Samir’s Theme” is more aggressive and darker, part two adds some production flourishes, and moves into B-Side ender “Sirens” which is just an ugly thump and a loop of sirens, like Samir’s beats have finally knocked the listener down and sent them to the E.R.
Oh yeah–like “War Pigs/Luke’s Wall” from Sabbath’s Paranoid, there’s one of those weird quasi-record grooves between B-Side ender “Sirens” and the track before it, “Samir’s Theme II” and shit if it’s really possible to tell where “Samir’s Theme II” ends and “Sirens” picks up so it’s just one track to listen to in the player up there. Also, that crappy Swizz Beatz joint “I’m Cool” from earlier last month was Swizzy rapping over “Samir’s Theme”.
DJ Excel sent me a couple GBs of video of him and Booman and Jimmy Jones basically hanging out with DJ Kool Breez and talking old times. Looks like it was recorded for a Bmore Original Radio show, so look for that eventually. But for now, in two parts is Kool Breez talking about making his shit on an SP-1200 versus other equipment, early crazy days of Unruly Records, music nerd stuff like Blapps Posse, and lots of other stuff. A must-view if you care about this Club shit at all. Thanks to Excel and Booman and Jimmy and Kool Breez.
Would’ve posted up something from Side B of this record as well but it wouldn’t be fair to your speakers or my record player’s needle–the side’s pretty much destroyed. More all-out House or even Rave shit–especially with that “Rollin” title–here but see, that didn’t mean much in 1994 because if it was dance music being played or made in Baltimore, nerds like me are gonna call it “Club music” fifteen years later and it’s still got that ugly raw sound in the drums that don’t really fly in any other area’s dance joints.
There’s a few things that are really special about this track, outside of its House, Rave, even Hip-House sounds. First, there’s this crowd noise rumbling around in the background of almost all of the track, and it’s sort of like Equalizer’s “All About Pussy” in the sense of using crowd noise, the byproduct of a sample for some added ambient weirdness. Also, those light horns are on some Maceo shit or something and they play-out and then get wrapped-up in the building beat and then are allowed to play out again later. “Wailing Diva” isn’t the same song, but it kinda feels the same in its low energy build-up and simplicity and there’s really no “wailing Diva” on this track, just a squeaking female vocal that when it’s finally allowed to finally sing-out is more like a polite Joyce Sims yodel than anything resembling a wail.
The Underground Trak Team’s just Scottie B and Shawn Caesar–sort of how recently, along with King Tutt, they’re Chavy Boys of London–and this single’s labeled ‘UR02′ which presumably makes it the second release by Unruly–after Trak Team’s Ingorant EP according to discogs. “Hype” lacks a Club break or even the breakneck pace expected from Club, for a relatively slow burn of hi-hats, snapping drums, and skittering electronic rhythms, it’s another Club song that’s basically a House song, save for the “That motherfucker’s hype!” sample that’s looped over and over again.
“Countoff” is part of the long-standing dance music trope of count-off songs, mixing and merging other performers’ counting into a Club track–DJ Pierre’s “Digits” being a recent one. Especially notable is the use of Snoop counting from “Deep Cover” and either the choice to not use the acapella or say “Fuck it” and use a swipe from the original song because an acapella wasn’t available. A lot of Club DJs and guys following the Club sound seem to hold-off for acapellas and while it makes sense, there’s something really messy and cool about just diving into the track and trying to pull out a relatively clean sample. There’s a lot of other stuff going on in this song, some bouncy, elastic bass, and all kinds of snaps and crackles–not all of which are the result of the crappy vinyl rip, mind you.
Baltimore’s Tom Breihan, ex-City Paper, ex-Village Voice’s “Status Ain’t Hood”, current Pitchfork newsdude and occasionally reviewer did a “Quarterly Report” on the year’s best singles so far, over at his blog Dip Dip Dive and chose “I’m the Shit” as one of his top-fives. His vision of Rod Lee with auto-tune is brilliant and his breakdown of “know it when you see it” approach to “real” vs. “fake” club is spot-on…
Bigg Patch is a rapper on Unruly and he’s often a part of those “My Crew Be Unruly” parties. He’s got a new album called Aries Rising coming out this summer and here are two tracks from the project:
It’s probably weird to start a positive review comparing the rapper to Jim Jones, but this song’s got some of that laid-back, hazy sadness Jim Jones does really well. Like, “Summer Wit’ Miami” or more recently, Jones’ verse on that Kid Cudi remix where Jones basically makes the songs about something more than being a “lonely stoner”, the sadness and stress of “the grind” (”I’m in the car with marijuana eyes”). Well, Patch has some of that same sad triumph here too. Ghostface or Pimp C do (did) it too where like, even on the party songs, they sound a little depressed or weary about everything.
Patch is on that kind of feeling here, sing-rapping about a chick at a party but he slowly goes from just rapping club-rap about a girl to giving you a whole bunch of details about her life, moving the song from the generic to the specific. The beat here too, helps it along, starting like the futuristic synth stuff of Blade Runner or something and slowly creeping in with more synths and drum stutters. There’s also this sound in the background that’s like when you encode an Mp3 poorly and it bleeps and bloops, all watery-sounding and shit.
Beat-wise this song is more of the same and maybe even closer to a Club song. Probably the Unruly connection, but the production here reminds me of the old-school Bambaataa flips on that Chavy Boyz album or stuff from King Tutt or something. Patch has a few moments here where he’s really on too. Both tracks are produced by DLO from TSL (The Soundlab).
The full title of this track wasn’t put in header, lest readers think this is a DJ Class joint or remix, it’s just, according to the Unruly Affiliated hipster-rap/club dudes duo from Baltimore, Claire Hux, “inspired by” DJ Class and also, Fully-Fitted. “Roll That” is essentially a remix of Fully Fitted’s “Roll That Shit, Light That Shit” which is, itself a remix, re-edit, appropriation, whatever of DJ Class’ “Roll Dat Shit”.
Both Claire Hux and Fully Fitted swipe the bouncing mumble-talk and the hyper-manipulated Method Man “roll that shit, light that shit, smoke it” sample from the DJ Class original, and then here, Claire Hux sticks Fully Fitted’s regal synth-horns–themselves a Baltimore Club staple–and Girl Talk-ian mess of samples (do like that Eightball sample though) atop their own vocals (and guest rapper Ced Hughes), making some weird back-and-forth and back again melange of straight Baltimore Club, what Baltimore Club sounds like when it moves out of city and county, and like, every other weird dance sub-genre ever.
Clever how the horns Fully Fitted grabbed from Jay-Z’s “Show Me What You Got” pop-up in Claire Hux’s version with Virginia Beach rapper Ced Hughes rapping like, Lil Wayne “Dough Is What I Got”-style over them…and of course, the horns are more popularly known as being from Wreckx-N-Effect’s “Rumpshaker” and N2Deep’s “Back to the Hotel” and before that, Public Enemy’s “Show Em’ Whatcha Got”, who sampled it originally from LaFayette’s Afro Rock Band’s “Darkest Light”, got all that?
Nice that Claire Hux reference DJ Class (and Fully Fitted shout him out) given the relative ease that so many “hipster” type Baltimore Club (in hometown or in “spirit”) DJs can prey on the relative lack of knowledge their club newbie audience usually possesses and get more credit than they deserve. There’s a lot of history in this Claire Track for those who care to do the research or ask around.
-You can also download Claire Hux’s Jammin’ On One mixtape (mixed by Scottie B) here.
Claire Hux Tour Dates:
Apr 2, 2009 10:00 PM Princeton University Princeton, New Jersey
Apr 9, 2009 9:00 PM Claire Hux Monthly Party @ The Windup Space! Baltimore, Maryland
Apr 24, 2009 9:00 PM Rad Summer @ the Buskirk Chumley w/ VHS or Beta Bloomington, Indiana
May 23, 2009 9:00 PM Claire Hux CD Release Party – BOLT @ Hexagon Baltimore, Maryland
Late last week, yet another kinda surreal remix of DJ Class’ Baltimore Club crossover blasted across the internet. This time though, it wasn’t relegated to club or radio-rap friendly blogs only. Sites like 2 Dope Boyz and the hip-hop oriented (though Baltimore friendly) Metal Lungies…hell even Internets Celebrity Dallas Penn is on his “I’m the Shit” shit.
The “I’m the Shit (Remix)” featuring Kanye West feels like the true arrival of DJ Class’ song, something of a guarantee the hype won’t stop or stumble or be curtailed by those that seem only interested in pushing seven or so artists interchangeably over seven or so of the same beats.
Let’s also give praise to Kanye for not only bigging-up the song, and shouting out Unruly Records—a nice touch given Jermaine Dupri and Trey Songz’s complete lack of knowledge as to what the song even was when they “remixed” it—but you know, creating an actual remix. According to Al Shipley’s Government Names, Kanye heard Class spin in LA and took him to Hawaii to do the remix.
The result’s a little more airy and sedate—almost reminds me of a Blaqstarr track—but it still bumps and it’s more like Kanye latched onto the parts of the song he knew he could do something with and went from there. Like the original, it’s soaked in auto-tune, but Kanye and Class fill all the open space of the original with house synthesizers and fluttering electronics. A really cool mix of Baltimore Club’s dance music style and the dance music all over the radio right now.
Even though it’s a little more removed from it’s origins, Kanye’s remix is also more in the Baltimore Club style. Jermaine Dupri and Trey Songz tried to wrestle with the song and turn it into something a little more coherent–rapping and singing over it like it’s just another beat—and the Lil Jon remix that Pitbull later jumped on, was cool for being Lil Jon’s first actual appearance after literally hundreds of sampled appearances, but was more interesting as an addition to the original (less said about Pitbull squeaked-out verse, the better) than anything else.
Kanye just sort of gives-in to the beat and does the half-singing, half-rapping he’s been doing on everything lately, and it makes him more like a typical Club DJ…just sort of hyping the track along or something. Less a group of notable but not at their peak of popularity rappers jumping on a trend than a top-of-the-world rapper co-signing something as officially, undeniably hot.
For good reason, people in Baltimore are a little protective of their city’s dance music and the excitement of “I’m the Shit” playing not only on our local 92Q station but New York’s Hot 97 was tempered by concerns that once more, regional music would be grabbed, played around with for awhile, and tossed to the side. It seems though, at least for now, the Baltimore Club sound is here to stay or at least, get fully swept-up in rap and R & B’s smashing together of sounds and trends.
The week before the Kanye remix of “I’m the Shit” dropped, a quieter but no less notable remix of Mims’ “Move” by DJ Class showed up in inboxes. What was so exciting about this remix is that it was essentially, an uncompromised Baltimore Club remix made for national consumption, not a local jam that blew up into a crossover hit.
We’ll see if Baltimore Club on a national level ends up being the next stick-it-on-everything-trend like auto-tune or something, but right now, things are looking good, as artists are not only going to a Baltimore artist, but one of the most notable veterans for their remixes.
Before Kanye jumped on “I’m the Shit”, DJ Excel had already flipped Kanye’s sad-bastard song into a mid-tempo Baltimore Club jam. As moody and bizarre as the original but a whole lot more fun too, “Lock 320” stutters and glitches and slowly sneaks-in a classic Baltimore Club break too. Halfway through, Excel sends Kanye’s auto-tuned vocals underwater into an incoherent mumble, almost like a parody of the gibberish auto-tune turns every vocal into; really great, weird stuff. You can cop Excel’s Singles & Remixes EP here
Be on the look out at SXSW for the Rye Rye’s mixtape “BLAQOUT” mixed and produced by Blaqstarr and make sure you come through and ROQ out at Blaqstarr’s showcase, where he’ll be performing live w/ special guests TBA….
SATURDAY, MARCH 21st
JB Starr, Senari, & Unruly presents:
A BALTIMORE LOVE THING
FRIENDS BAR (8p-2a)
206 E. 6th Street
Also, check out DJ sets by Blaqstarr;
Friday, March 20
Zune/Digiwaxx Party (2p-7p)
Blaqstarr DJ set w/Cool Kids, Asher Roth, DJ Class
Greenowl Showcase (8p-2a)
Blaqstarr DJ set w/Radioclit, THE VERY BEST, Ninja Sonik,
Telepathe, So So Glos, Casio Kids, Shilpa Ray, The London Souls, Lemonade
Saturday, March 21
FADER Fort (6:30p-7:30p)
Blaqstarr DJ set
Mad Decent Party (10p-2a)
Blaqstarr DJ set w/Diplo, Switch, XXXchange, Rye Rye, Radioclit
