The Washington Post Weekend - USA (2020-11-27)

THE

WASHINGTON

POST

.

FRIDAY,

NOVEMBER

27, 2020

PG

SHAN WALLACE

Washington rapper I Am

Northeast delivers vivid,

straightforward rhymes on

“Touchin’.”

plainly tell things like they are.

“Touchin’ ” falls within that

matter-of-fact storytelling,

though it is packed with humble

brags about how his track record

has afforded him access to just

about everything he could possi-

bly want. At its core, I Am North-

east’s music is classic trap, influ-

enced by the likes of Gucci Mane,

Young Dolph and Young Jeezy:

straightforward, vivid and a man-

ual on what to do and what not to

do if you’re in his world.

CalvoMusic, “Jill Scott —

Loves Me (New Club Waves

Edit)”

In the early weeks of the covid-

19 shutdowns across the country,

a group of young men from Balti-

more went viral for their disre-

gard of the new restrictions. “B----

we is from Baltimore, we don’t

care about no f------ curfew,” one

of them exclaimed into his front-

facing camera. Local club music

producer CalvoMusic took the

short clip and turned it into

2020’s most entertaining club

song by adding the city’s signa-

ture 130BPM sauce to an already

hilarious moment.

Calvo’s newest track isn’t the

attention-grabbing draw that

“B---- We From Baltimore” is, but

it’s significantly more versatile in

terms of when it’d be appropriate

to play. The song is an edit of

veteran Philly singer Jill Scott’s

classic “He Loves Me (Lyzel in E

Flat)” from her 2000 debut album

“Who Is Jill Scott? Words and

Sound Vol. 1.” In Calvo’s version,

the sweet “Oooh’s” from the origi-

nal come at you like overlapping

voices in your head while bongos

and 808s add flair. Tracks like this

show that, with club music, no era

of music is too old for a facelift.

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long enough makes the locally be-

loved rapper’s a ccounts of triumph

so much sweeter. In late October,

he released “Hood President,” his

first mix tape of the year, and like

everything else he’s dropped since

2017, it has a 50/50 balance of

narratives about both the highs

and lows of he’s experienced — if

not just even-keel stories that

scene, and how she’s like bad

knees (because she gets it “crack-

in’ ”).

I Am Northeast, “Touchin’ ”

The way that I Am Northeast —

take a guess as to which D.C.

quadrant he represents — chroni-

cles the emotional toll that life on

the streets can have if you stay in it

sounds almost identical to the

smash hits that JetsonMade has

crafted for DaBaby, with bass hits

that come so quick and often that

they’ll leave you dizzy. Deetrana-

da’s bars are nothing like the guy

from Charlotte, though. On it, she

raps about people feeling her

across the pond in London, her

plan to take over the Baltimore

on whatever beat she encounters,

and her sharp lyrical acrobatics

make it so that you’re going to be

finding new gems almost every

time you run one of her tracks

back. Her most recent offering,

“Help!,” demonstrates that skill

set. The HINH x SCXRBOY beat

MUSIC FROM 5

Music

N

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