Poe & Rasheed- Diverse Hustle (Dogg University R-Sinal Records) Here's another mixtape that I kinda dug out of my stack of neglected CDs and can't really remember where I got it, although there's an Akbar Entertainment Designz logo on it so I guess Skarr Akbar did the artwork, maybe I got it from hi...

Ogun - Checkmate (Architects Recording Studio/Real On Purpose Ent.) This week in the City Paper I reviewed Ogun's new mixtape, although really it's been out for a few weeks already so you should already have it. Last year we named him the best male MC in our Best Of Baltimore issue and I really feel...

Skarr Akbar - "Scholarship Chick" (mp3) Skarr's latest single has been getting a lot of radio spins the last few weeks and I've been meaning to post it for a minute. Dude really came up with a hit record, from the concept down to all the shout outs of local colleges. I gotta say, though, that whoeve...

I tag posts on Gov't Names to hopefully make it easier to navigate, especially for first time or occasional readers, just to make it easier for them to find just posts about the artist or topic they're interested in. But it's also become kind of an interesting way to measure how frequently I post ab...

Y'know, it's funny. I've been running this site for over 4 years now, and hearing more and more Baltimore rap every year that I do it, and yet every year I feel less and less qualified to let my opinion be the end-all-be-all that some people treat it as. There's simply too much music, too much varie...

Brown F.I.S.H. - Bootleg III: F.I.S.H. & Friends... The Mixtape Brown F.I.S.H. is a pretty important group in Baltimore hip hop that I feel like I've never really given enough coverage to on here, partly because a lot of their activity predates this site (I remember seeing them open for Black Sheep ...

Tha Profitt - Concept Art (Profitt Productions) Concept Art is an apt title for this album, because Tha Profitt understands better than most MCs that one of the keys to making dope rap music is to have strong concepts and themes for songs, a topic to stick to for three verses and a clever title to t...

Skarr Akbar - "Da Bizness (live at Sonar 6/26/08)" (mp3) Skarr Akbar - "Would U (live at Sonar 6/26/08)" (mp3) I reviewed the Teop release party at Sonar last week for Noise, and it's my first show review on there that I actually took pictures for myself, now that I have a camera I'm going to try an...

Tha Profitt - B-More's #1 White Boy (Profitt Productions) Last year, this kid Tha Profitt sent me three of his mixtapes, and I wrote about the one that was the most recent at the time, Baltimore Entrepeneur , and a few months later saw him at the BMore Vibe mixtape release party, where he put on a c...

Profound - Carpe Diem (Real On Purpose Entertainment) This week in the City Paper I reviewed the new Profound mixtape, along with the Say-Wut album I posted about the other day. I've been really wanting to hear Profound do a solo project since that Oil And Water 2 , and this came out well, really ju...