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My music comes from anger, Rod Lee told Link magazine in the fall of 2004, Anger that goes amongst everyone. He should knowfrom his bunker-like studio on Monument Street, Lee has witnessed the continuing turmoil of Baltimore, a city plagued by violence, poverty, disease and despair. Some call it the heroin capitol of the world, Misery City, or Americas third world home. Yet like cosmic cracks in the pavement that swallow whole discarded bullet casings and flowering vials of corpulent dreams, art somehow survives.
Enter Lee, the undisputed Godfather of Baltimore Club, the citys own indigenous music that has spread like an electric undercurrent via underground clubs and pirate radios around the world. Rhythmically incessant, laced with scattershot insights, chants of anger and virile sublimity, Baltimore Club blends the rabid energy of house music with the reckless defiance of hip-hop. It is spirited, primal, unrelentingly passionate and scatological, all the elemental sonic chakras that urge the body to move and the soul to lust. And this sound is Lees invention: not just the usual recipe of dance music, but an erstwhile alchemy of urban realism and scat kick drums, catastrophic vocal riffs and thunderous transition, from desperation to drive, full-on assault and kinetic affirmation.
Now Lee, in conjunction with Morphius Urban is releasing his 5th Baltimore Club album entitled Rod Lee Vol. 5: The Official, a 30-track masterpiece featuring his best music to date. Taking Baltimore Club to another level, Lee punctuates the energetic clip of hip-hop infused club beats with a overarching subterranean narrative touching on the joy and pain, sorrow and resolve that Baltimore club-style survival dictates. Between the seams of the four-on-the-floor euphoria are songs like Dance My Pain Away, Lees appeal for a break from bill collectors and the repo man, and You Keep Fuckin Around, a cryptic and dark love/threat that reveals the merciless underbelly of the citys male/female relations. Euphoria kicks in again with the rousing Get Your Handz up, a frenzied track that inverts the clichéd phrase and turns into a transcendent request for release. Finally, Lee finishes the CD off with Break It Down, a primal chant tune encoded with all the sublimate anger and creative divinity that makes Lee a credible genius.
Of course, Lee did not complete this masterpiece alone. Adding to his own talent is work from some of the best producers in Baltimore Club, including BLAQ STAR, K.W GRIF, DJ TECHNICS, and overnight sensation DJ LIL JAY. All have lent tracks and talent in homage to the undisputed master of the genre.
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