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What always boggled my mind is that how is Baltimore the most ghetto major city on the East Coast, as a whole, but has the least contribution to Rap out of the rest of the major East Coast cities? Baltimore is nonexistent on the mainstream Rap map and always has been. Baltimore rapper Comp was signed to Def Jam at one point in the early 2000's and Maryland rapper Big Rich did score a honestly rather terrible hit song about Baltimore called "Whoa Now" that played regularly on BET and radio nationwide in 2002. But Baltimore did actually have a little bit of independent Hip Hop in the 90's, but they didn't press up their own music in tapes and CD's and hustle it hand-to-hand out of the back of their trunks very hard like they do in the Bay Area and Down South because the only artifacts left of Baltimore's small independent rap scene in the 90's are 12" vinyl pressings. It might also have to do with the fact that Baltimore's most celebrated local ghetto music genre is Club music. Also, the residents of Baltimore and its suburbs were never heavy supporters of local underground independent Rap like, say, the Bay Area, Houston or New Orleans. Baltimore has always struggled with an identity crisis as well, not being too Northern or too Southern. In the 90's, much of Baltimore's Rap mirrored the sounds of NYC hardcore groups like Mobb Deep and Wu-Tang from the production, subject matter and sometimes even down to faux-NY accents and adoption of NY slang whereas the Down South explosion of the late 90's and early 2000's saw Baltimoreans worshipping the dark aggressive sounds of groups like Three Six Mafia.
The major reliance on exposure for these local records was via public radio (i.e. 88.9). The verse where he is talking about jealously watching people sliding through his block in clean cars perfectly captures how it feels to drive down the average block in East or West Baltimore with all the corner boys schemingly staring at you as you drive by:
Last edited by LunaticVillage; 07-19-2014 at 10:46 AM..
J. Cole reminds me a lot of Nas. He's also a very real rapper. I'm not just sayign that because I'm from Fayetteville too lol he really is quite good. What do yous guys think of J. Cole?
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