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Last spring, as the final season of The Wire was coming to an end, I received a mixtape from a rapper out of Baltimore named Kode Streets. While it's unrealistic to expect every piece of entertainment originating out of Baltimore to be as thought provoking as The Wire, I popped in Kode's tape, Kode to the Streets hosted by DJ Shakim, with the hope that it would in some small way carry the torch from HBO's show and delve further into the details of life in "The Greatest City in America." What I got instead was a 45 minute mix filled with tales of drug dealing and wanton violence that seemed more in line with the cartoonish, over-the-top portrayal of street hustling in Grand Theft Auto than the grim reality of The Wire.
Admittedly I know next to nothing about Baltimore's hip hop scene, so it's entirely possible that Kode is an established vet on the local circuit and really has experienced everything that he raps about on Kode of the Streets (though if even Government Names doesn't know much about him, that's unlikely). However, at no point during the tape do his boasts of living like a Charm City Scarface ever sound convincing, filled as they are with claims of an unbelievably succesful career as a drug dealer. Over the beat from Mobb Deep's Pearly Gates, Kode eventually does get around to contemplating the possibility that the street life might catch up to him at some point, but quickly dismisses the thought as little more than an opportunity to "run a train" up in gangster heaven with one of his dead homies. There's an unrelenting glorification of the violence going on in Baltimore - further emphasized by numerous shoutouts to "Bodymore," "Bloodymore," "Murderland," and "Harm City" - and that, ultimately, is the biggest failing of Kode as an emcee. By never acknowledging the flipside of life as a hustler, Kode's tales never ring true and leave the listener wondering just how much of the lyrical content has been inspired by what Kode he's seen on television.
For every Marlo Stanfield that manages to come out on top, there are hundreds of Bodies who don't make it out of the game (or perhaps even worse, end up working at Foot Locker). Yet if we're to believe Kode and the hordes of aspiring studio gangsters putting out similar mixtapes, rare is the case that drug dealing - while moonlighting as a rapper - doesn't result in massive amounts of wealth. Kode has his moments on this tape, but he would be a far more interesting rapper if he just kept it real and told us about what he's really experienced in his life.
Having said all of that, there was one song that I did like quite a bit, Heaven, produced by Debonair Samir. The tape would have benefitted from more of Samir's production, as Heaven ends up sounding significantly more polished than any of the tape's other tracks that were built around beats jacked from mainstream artists. Peep:
Kode Streets - Heaven
Here's one more song from Kode of the Streets:
Kode Streets and Shakim - Spread Love
You can find a link to download Kode of the Streets over at streetcred.com. Should you be so inclined to hear more from Kode Streets, stop by his Myspace page.
10/8/2008 07:49:01 PM posted by Fresh