i just made the mistake of cueing up Bmore club music in Ableton. now i fucken wanna rob somebody.
above is the EPK for Mad Decent artist and Baltimore Club hero DJ Blaqstarr. when i was a young, young buck, the pounding, repetitive sound of this shit used to scare the hell out of me.
as i got older, and cunt became ever more intriguing to me, however, i came to love it. my boy Trip's old man owns Club Choices, so much of my education came from experiences there during middle school. for those outside the area, Club Choices is a pseudo-strip club that the local "urban" radio station, 92Q, broadcasts from on the weekends.
going there back in middle school was always a crapshoot though, because we never knew whether it was gonna be guys or girls. strippers that is. one night we might go in, and tuck singles under a thick chick's G-string, trying not to nut ourselves. but the next night, we might stumble in and find ourselves amidst a bunch of fucking Mandingos! fucking Turbo, Laser, and Champion swinging their dicks all over the place. but either way, that Club shit was always rockin. we'd take those 99 track CDs straight from Rod Lee (another Club god) and bump em in the nearest SUV. acting like we weren't a bunch of private school kids.
and of course there were the kiddie discos. basically dance parties for the under-18 set, every easter weekend. there were some truly thug ass motherfucking 9th graders up in there though, so you had to watch your step. but it was all good. lots of video chicks in training too.
a kid i knew once described Bmore Club as "headache music." but i like to think of it a little differently. as the video clearly shows, this is the kinda shit that causes the teen pregnancy rate to skyrocket. you just can't fucking help yourself.
and as for the neophytes seeking a thorough education on the genre, what the fuck do you think this is, Wikipedia? there's a whole gang of shit out there, floating about the internet, so get your weight up, not your hate up.
"all these fake djs, fake producers trynta make baltimore club, ya'll not makin bmore club, ya'll makin fake club" - "sex machine" by labtekwon feat. dj booman
i guess every generation of Black Americans experiences it, the straight up pilfering (reverse signifying?) of their cultural expression by white hipsters/enterprisers that then go on to success, fame, and fortune. we seem to have taken it all in stride though, proving ourselves artistically dynamic in the face of it all (i.e. the exodus from rock to rap in the late '70s/early '80s; enough was enough i guess). imitation is the most sincere form of flattery we're told.
but this aggression will not stand man! the latest case of stylistic hijacking is of great significance to me, as my hometown is the battleground. baltimore club has gained a relatively broad national audience in the last few years (like miami bass a while back), and a number of artists that i respect and love have used the staccatto, repetitive beats as backing for their flows and rhymes. but honestly. honestly?! it was cool when M.I.A. and Diplo hooked some shit up. but honestly!? ya basta!
the permeation of bmore club into the hipster remixer scene is indelible; in a recent downloading frenzy on limewire and the mp3 blogs, a huge number of the remixers used bmore club as backing for songs (remixes?) that were otherwise unchanged.
don't get me wrong, when this shit is done well and with some restraint, it pops off. but when i hear a track by some swedish cat that's completely off tempo and not mixed well, it's just plain horrific.
i grew up with this shit, this bizarre genre of music that's rooted deeply in the house, detroit ghettotech tradition and that often samples doo-wop and r+b/soul tracks from the previous generation (as well as the spongebob theme, southern rap, and chris rock stand-ups). repetitive, but hard hitting, grimy shit to get your gun off to.
summers spent banging 92q's club mixes, feverishly recording the joints onto cassette straight off the radio. shady nights as a kid spent at club choices (a local strip club that 92q broadcasts from; i grew up with the owner's son). hotboxing SUVs and storming around town bumping 90-track club mix CDs straight from the radio station. good times in general.
it should make me feel good/proud that two cats from new york tried to con me and my boys (all baltimore natives) into believing that baltimore club started in new york. but all i can think is that all this sampling from the bin is gonna deplete the supply that much more quickly. but hey, i can look forward to the shit that blows up in its wake, right?
