Best of 2009: San Diego Rap Albums

One more list. I will keep pretending that San Diego has a scene until the day that we have a scene. Also posted at Examiner, but who cares?

1. Blame One – Days Chasing Days
Let’s recap: Days Chasing Days was simultaneously Blame One’s return from retirement after his last album, his label debut to the greater rap world, and then eventually his swan song before going back into retirement (…… before coming back out of retirement just a few months later). As ambivalent as Blame is towards the actual business of music, the music itself is very focused. It’s grown man rap, whether he’s discussing metaphysics and hieroglyphics, reminiscing on his childhood, or just bitch-slapping young, wack, and/or disrespectful emcees. Production from post-Dilla torchbearers like Exile, Oh No, and Black Milk offer stable, boom-bap support for Blame to rip.
Listen: Blame One “Supreme Beings”

Yo! SD Raps: new songs from Jayo Felony, Black Mikey, Ecay Uno, & more

Still scouring my city for rapps. Got some good ones from Jayo Felony, my new favorite local rapper, Black Mikey, and producer-rapper Ecay Uno. I threw it up at Examiner, for some reason that I don’t know. Check it out:

According to the world’s most accurate encyclopedia, Jayo Felony released his new album, Don’t Get MeatBalled, this year. Ummmm, or not. “Blocc Party” apparently comes from that and finds Jayo snapping in full tongue-twisting, lyrical form. I, for one, have never thought to tell a girl that all the inches I lack in height I make up for in d**k size. Jayo Felony brings hope to short people all over San Diego. The beat is a solid banger, sampling hydraulics in a way that’s not obnoxious, which I would’ve thought impossible.

Black Mikey – Blackula

Well, the Examiner gig is kind of a bust but it has encouraged me to really dig into my city for some good rap music. It’s like my responsibility considering how terribly rockist and terribly terrible the current local rap coverage is (to give you an idea of how bad the situation is, this chick won the award for “Best Hip Hop Artist in SD” this year).

Black Mikey is apparently an OG San Diego rapper, dating all the way back to 1993, according to one of his songs (though you know how rappers like to lie about how long they’ve been in the game). He’s been locked up for the last 8 years but got out this year and released Blackula. So far, it’s some pretty good gangster rap. I appreciate that he’s trying to convince us that he’s mad psychotic instead of just acting straight-up hard like other notable gangster rappers from my city, Jayo Felony and Mitchy Slick (or, y’know, Nick Cannon). His voice is perfect now at this age, sounding really gruff, full of wear and tear and damage. And the way he uses it is like a subdued shout, or like his voice is worn from so much shouting and yet he still keeps shouting. There’s urgency in his delivery like he’s been trying to spit his way to freedom for the past 8 years.

The above video is from earlier this decade (maybe filmed inside the prison even) before he loses his voice and starts sounding tight. But if you go to his Reverb Nation page, you can get a better sample of his current stuff including much of Blackula.