SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT: Mac & G, "Real Recognize Real"

It gives me no greater pleasure than to return to blogging after a lengthy hiatus and be able to help promote folks that I fool with personally and professionally.  Thus, I bring you a new addition to "The Angry Musings": the Shameless Plug Alert.  This month's featured artists are Rated R The Mac (IG: RatedRTheMac) & Gladiator (IG: langston_huge) aka Mac & G and their long-awaited album, Real Recognize Real--which hit the streets today.

Scribbler's Native Tongue Mixtape Pick (Local Edition): Just Ace, "Time Travel Mixtape"

I absolutely love stumbling upon mixtapes, EPs and albums that pleasantly surprise me--especially when I either don't know what to expect from it or don't expect much out of it at all.  When I first discovered the featured local mixtape of [what was supposed to be a review for the month of] April, I just randomly picked it from DatPiff.  I saw that although it didn't have the fanfare of many other mixtapes on the site--honestly, there's an endless sea of mixtapes to sift through, and that's just from the DMV alone--it had enough streams to steer me towards downloading it.  Didn't appear to be like a lot of the average mixtapes on the site--album art with half-naked women, people counting money, random cocaine scales, extravagant houses and/or cars, and the like--so I figured what the heck.  What I got was a seven-track, 24-minute diamond in the rough from Northern Virginia rapper Just Ace, Time Travel Mixtape (presented by Vintage Innovation).

Scribbler's Native Tongue Mixtape Pick (Local Edition): SmCity, "Dream Cemetery"

Since my introduction to DMV hip-hop artist SmCity's music via The Indie Life LP and as one of the few local artists that I've actually seen live and shook hands with, he has become one of my favorite artists from this area, but not for the obvious reasons.  Yeah, he has a nice flow.  True, he's got presence on the mic.  Of course he has a good ear for music.  However, even these laudable qualities can't trump my overarching point: SmCity is a master at speaking from the perspective of the [grossly unheralded] independent artist and/or entrepreneur by providing the blueprint for continuing one's path toward greatness and success--in spite of the often-frustrating difficulties that anyone worth his or her weight in gold endures.  Whether it's through his Indie Life Concert Series with Twenty20 Music & Films that provides local and national artists a live platform to connect with their supporters or by way of his own music, the dude embodies what he raps.  He continues that unique ability as well as getting a bit more personal with his latest project, Dream Cemetery.  (For the record, Sm has released both a free version, which you can download via DatPiff, and a deluxe version with three extra tracks available via iTunes.  This review will be of the free version, but PLEASE support this brother.)