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”

Blame One – Leaks and Gemz

Mixtape: Blame One – Leaks and Gemz

I am obligated by my city to post this up or else give up privileges to carne asada fries forever. Backpack raps for life, son. Initial thoughts:

Sounds solid on second listen.

“Dream Sequence Revenge” is the clear standout. I actually give Exile a slight edge on the mic, surprisingly. If for nothing else than for rapping about fat ho’s.

Sojourn kills on “The Cypher.”

“Mr. Science” and “Dr. Jeck” are also great. Maybe more of his song titles should start with Mr., Dr., Sir, Count, Sensei, etc.

The cover is Photoshopped from his Grown Man Rap days. I don’t know why that matters.

After the jump, tracklisting and links to two songs, in case you want to try a couple before committing to the full mixtape.

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.

Blame One – RIP x Small Town Cops x Touches Me x The Chor Boogie

My bad, I didn’t mean to ignore this blog for a full week. I’m really trying to be better about updating this consistently. But I caught a cold last week and have been hopped up on drugs most of the time. Also, I couldn’t get myself to just aggregate content like I’d intended. It felt too cheap and lord knows I don’t need to be selling myself out for not-money on my own free time. I do that plenty at work already.

Despite my sickly state, I have been digging up more San Diego raps, thanks to some Twitter stalking. Blame One leaked out tweeted these four joints sometime recently.

Blame One “RIP” “As The World Turns” [prod. Rip One]
“RIP,” which might actually be named Actually IS named “As The World Turns,” sees Blame talking shit on wack new emcees, always connecting it with his sense of esoteric spiritualism.

Blame One “Small Town Cops” [prod. Exile]
Exile chops up some ill Mafia-esque strings. Blame recounts how his esoteric spiritualism got him in trouble with the 5-0.

Blame One “Touches Me” [prod. Exile]
Music is awesome. And music is a woman.

Blame One “The Chor Boogie” [prod. Fred Fades]
Blame spits an ode to a dear friend for the purposes of a documentary on said friend, who painted this hotel room.

Grown Man Rap

I wrote an article about local rapper Blame One for a writing class I took in the winter. I tried getting it published like at a real publication and shit but it didn’t really work out. This is probably my most well-written article ever, due more to the massive edits and people telling me how much it sucked than to my own individual talent. Still, can’t be mad:

Examiner: “San Diego’s Blame One gives you grown man rap“

And if you’re still checking for this blog, my bad about a lack of updates. I started putting all my blogging energies into Examiner. I visited LA like a couple weekends ago and bitches were hella on my jock for the Examiner gig (well, sorta …… my friend’s boyfriend’s dog kept jumping at my nuts). Since then, I’ve been working to please my adoring fans.

And I also got Street Fighter 4. For Xbox360. As if you weren’t up on it already.

Zomby Mob ft. Blame One “The Greats”

Zomby Mob ft. Blame One “The Greats“

So I finally started digging through the 1000+ items that I left to accumulate in my RSS feed. Here’s a joint that Grandgood posted all the way back on the first of the month, re-posted here for the sake of SD pride. Hometown hero Blame One re-connects with Rath Khy (one half of producer duo Zomby Mob) and does his backpack rap thing. At this point, Blame may be more known for being Exile’s homie than anything else to non-Diegans but he’s been throwing down on Rath Khy beats since his A Complex Burden album from 2005. And now that I know Rath Khy likes zombies and shit, his beats sound way nicer. Braaaaainsss ……

Never Fit It

DOWNLOAD: Blame One “Never Fit It“

Here’s another track off of local SD rapper Blame One’s upcoming album, Days Chasing Days. Maybe because I’ve purposefully stayed away from this type of vibe in recent years so I’m not used to it anymore, but the backpackerist, fuck-the-mainstream, keep-it-realism feels more pronounced than I expected and it caught me off guard some. And it actually sounds somewhat fresh nowadays as compared to so much politically-correct, its-all-good attitude that pervades the rap bloggerverse and makes us take motherfuckers like Rick Ross or Jim Jones seriously as rappers. Blame sticks to his strengths here, namely spitting lyrically lyrical nonsense by mixing spirituality and metaphysics into a sort of battle rap. I don’t know who produced the track but it employs a pretty good sample in a modest way. It’s not great but I ain’t mad at it.

Blame’s album was originally slated for release like last week or something but it’s been pushed back to the end of March, according to his Myspace. Which is actually a pretty good idea considering another SD backpacking hip-hop act, Deep Rooted, drops their album this Tuesday. Releasing both at the same time would probably just make the universe implode or something.

New Blamexile

Exile and Blame wearing hats

DOWNLOAD: Blame One ft. Sean Price – Disturbed [prod. Exile]

Blame One’s first single off Days Chasing Days, set for release January 2009. Exile is capitalizing on the shine he got from last year’s Below The Heavens and shoving his rapper homies down his label’s throat. And as long as Exile’s behind the boards, that’s perfectly fine. Blame doesn’t mesh well with Jesus Price but they’re both serviceable enough. Exile rips this beat apart, doing that Donuts thing with the vocal samples, chopping them up in an interruptible way and using them as instruments in awkward but really genius ways, all on top of these sick sax cuts that he also chops awkwardly. I’m looking forward to the Blame album because he and Exile have good chemistry. And as a San Diegan, I’d much rather ride for Blame One than freakin Mitchy Slick.