In Baltimore City, Rod Lee is a hitmaker on the level of the Neptunes or Lil Jon-- his productions have helped turn artists such as rapper Bossman and R&B; singer Paula Campbell into local stars. But he's better known as the king of Baltimore club music, a cheap, hard, frantic, fiercely regional strain of black house music that exists only within Baltimore. Baltimore club's closest sonic cousin is probably baile funk-- both rely heavily on unlicensed samples and relentless, virtually amelodic beats. But baile funk is a distant descendent of the frisky, infectious party chants of Miami bass, whereas club comes from the insistent, twitchy minimalism of Detroit and Chicago house. As a result, Baltimore club has a bleak, paranoid edge that baile funk lacks, and the intensely sexual lyrics are in English, not Portuguese, so you can't pretend they aren't nasty.
The Official is a turgid, overlong, and repetitive mix, with precious few hooks to make the ferocious, concussive breakbeats go down more easily. And yet it also makes a pretty good case that Baltimore club is one of the rawest, most exciting forms of dance music on the planet. A track like DJ Technics' "The PJ Chant" starts with a skeletal stomp-clap drum machine and an anthemic horn riff chopped up to sound like a siren, brings in sampled female moans and skittery beatboxing before dropping everything out for a climactic two-note foghorn tuba riff, then builds everything back up into dense, pulsing swirl-- all within two minutes. Lee's own "Watch My Ass" lays a shuffling, rattling drum break under Lady Margetta's cold, unemotional X-rated vocal ("Watch my ass as I'm grindin' on ya dick, daddy"), then multitracks and layers Margetta's vocal until it becomes a part of the beat itself. KW-Griff's "The Problem" speeds up the eerie horror-movie pianos from Lil Scrappy's "No Problem" to cartoonish velocities, adding goofy whizzing sound effects and an uproarious sampled burp to the mix.
It all adds up into a bruising, mind-warping monolith. But every once in a while, something painfully human jumps out of the stew. Lee's "Luvin' You" supports a crushingly sad vocal from the R&B; group Status with an uncharacteristically twerky, infectious Green Velvet-ish old-school house track. Nigga Say What's "Horn Theme" combines an obliteratingly huge horn riff with an epic, apocalyptic choir to stunning effect. And on "Dance My Pain Away", Lee's unpolished, atonal vocals tell a tale of financial stress ("Listen to my story/ Bill collectors on me/ Have to file bankruptcy") before building to triumphant chorus: "I'm gonna dance my pain away." It's not only a great track; it's an explanation of how a furious, urgent, unforgiving mutation of house music captured a poor, dangerous city.
