Wendel Patrick’s first memory is actually a dream. It was a recurring dream that he had for years, well into adulthood. It started when he was about 2, maybe even younger. The dream had no people in it. No light. But there was a steady sound—a beat. Something about that beat made Patrick realize he wasn’t alone.

“And then at some point, the rhythm—the thing that was repeating—became more intense and rapid, and then it stopped,” Patrick says. “And there was nobody else. I knew I was by myself.”

When he could find the words, maybe he was 3 or 4 by then, he asked his mother about the dream. She burst into tears.

Years later he would find out that he had a twin who died in childbirth. The twin’s name was…Wendel Patrick Gift.

This all becomes a little less confusing when you learn that Wendel Patrick was born Kevin Gift. For the first part of his life, everyone knew him as Kevin. He studied classical piano and earned a master’s degree in piano performance from Northwestern University School of Music. But he also started experimenting with electronic music, improvisation, and hip-hop. He bought mics and drum kits and samplers.

When he released his first hip-hop album, folks who knew him only from classical music were confused. He felt a need to distinguish the two sides of his musical life. So for the hip-hop persona, he would go by Wendel Patrick, after his brother, whose presence he always intuitively felt. His classical music persona would stay Kevin Gift.

At the time, he didn’t realize how blurred those two identities might become. That he would become a famous hip-hop producer and musician. That he would bridge the two worlds by bringing hip-hop into the hallowed halls of Peabody Institute. And that it would be a very long time before he would play classical piano again.

Another one of his earliest memories involves the piano. He and his family were living in Venezuela. His father was a diplomat, so they moved around a lot. His mother wanted his older sister, Deena, to start taking piano lessons. She brought Deena and Wendel to the studio of a well-known teacher. Young Wendel, then just 4, also played for the teacher, banging on the keyboard with glee.

“I’ll teach the girl but only if I can teach the boy as well,” the teacher said.

And so his musical journey began.

Patrick, now 51, showed an enormous aptitude for classical piano and it was one of the things that grounded him as his family moved from D.C. to Venezuela to Jamaica. Whenever they would stay at a hotel, his mother would make arrangements for her two children to practice the piano in the lobby or the lounge, if they had one. It was a source of continuity and comfort in his life.

But when he was 14, he stopped playing. He was a teenager—he had other interests: sports, girls, popular music, especially hip-hop. He loved Public Enemy and Eric B. & Rakim. A friend turned him onto the reggae-tinged hip-hop of Boogie Down Productions, which he couldn’t get enough of.

“I still loved classical music,” he explains. “But I just didn’t listen to it that much.”

He went to college, undergrad at Emory University. He majored in political science, figuring he’d be a diplomat like his dad, or maybe a lawyer. One day, a girlfriend asked him to play piano. He demurred at first but finally agreed. She was impressed with his talent, but he was stunned. He sounded terrible, at least based on his own high standards. He had assumed the facility would always be there, but he now understood he needed to use it or lose it. It bothered him, more than he expected.

He began studying piano at Emory and realized that music was his true love. He went on to get that master’s in piano performance at Northwestern. But his love for hip-hop was still percolating. It was the ’90s, so you couldn’t record things on a computer. You needed physical equipment. Mics. Recorders. Turntables.

He began experimenting with different electronic and hip-hop sounds, all while studying to become a concert pianist. In 1997, he moved to Baltimore, where his mother was living (she and his father had divorced by then). He got a small, grubby apartment in Mt. Vernon—by far his biggest and most expensive piece of furniture was his Steinway piano.

Then, in 2005, he had just come home from playing a Mozart piano concerto in Bolivia when he realized that his index finger on his left hand felt strange. He figured he just needed rest. He took two weeks off from playing. When he tried again, the finger felt worse—weak, almost like he had no control over it. He went to a clinic that specialized in hand injuries. The doctors asked him to play. Afterwards, the room got very quiet.

“You’re making me nervous,” he said.

The doctors told him he had a nerve condition called focal dystonia. It was the same condition that Peabody’s most famous professor, the pianist Leon Fleisher, had suffered from. It effectively ended Fleisher’s career as a concert pianist.

This was obviously very depressing news—existentially depressing, in some ways. But Wendel Patrick (who was then still only known as Kevin Gift) has the kind of restless creative spirit that can’t be extinguished. He got more involved in photography, a pastime he had picked up while on tour with a band. He started experimenting more with electronic music. He made that first hip-hop album. And Wendel Patrick was born.

“I DON’T THINK HIP-HOP NEEDS ANY VALIDATION OF ANY KIND. THAT’S NOT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT FOR ME AT ALL.”

If you live in Baltimore, you might know Patrick in any number of ways. Maybe you took piano lessons from him at Music & Arts in Timonium or Ellicott City back in the day. Maybe you’ve attended one of his Boom Bap Society concerts—a series of lively, improvised hip-hop jam sessions that he started with his friend, the composer and DJ Erik Spangler, 14 years ago. Maybe you’ve watched the Maryland Public Television series he hosts, Artworks, where he interviews fascinating members of the local arts community. Maybe you’ve listened to his albums or his collaborations with the likes of spoken word artist Ursula Rucker or Baltimore’s own Eze Jackson.

Quite possibly, you know him through Out of the Blocks, the podcast he co-produced with Aaron Henkin. Patrick wrote the ineffably cool, jazzy scores that accompanied the podcast, which produced intimate audio profiles of city blocks and their people.

When Henkin approached Patrick about collaborating on Out of the Blocks, he was simply hoping to use some of Patrick’s pre-existing music. He had been a fan of the musician since he interviewed him for a WYPR show called “The Signal.” But Patrick had another idea: What if he wrote customized soundtracks for each episode, incorporating the natural soundscape—the sizzle of the deep fryer, the whir of a dry-clean machine—into the music? Henkin was blown away.

“It was like asking to borrow someone’s used pickup truck, and then them saying, actually, let me build you a brand new Maserati from scratch,” he says with a chuckle.

Patrick became a co-producer of the show. He also got in the habit of taking striking black-and-white photos of the subjects featured on the pod. He and Henkin would hand deliver a print of the photograph to the interviewee, a way of saying thanks and staying connected.

Henkin says the photos also served as an icebreaker. “Like, everyone understands what a photo portrait is, but maybe not so much an audio portrait,” he explains. “It was almost like the pictures were easier for people to wrap their mind around than the audio.”

Henkin describes his partnership with Patrick as the most “productive, satisfying collaboration” of his life.

And now, Patrick is about to embark on one of his biggest challenges yet: heading up Peabody Institute’s new hip-hop program. Peabody will become the first conservatory in the world to offer a hip-hop degree.

It’s an overcast day in November and Patrick is sitting in his two-floor apartment in the Bromo Arts District, reflecting on his career and life. Downstairs is a rather elaborate studio with all manner of microphones, video equipment, turntables, mixers, as well as that beautiful grand piano. His bedroom is upstairs. (He moved into this larger space in 2012.)

Patrick is dressed simply, in a dark gray thermal top, black jeans, and bare feet. He has an elegant way about him—a calm voice, a thoughtful stillness.

He says he’s excited about the prospect of building this hip-hop department from scratch—in what can only be described as a coup, Grammy Award-winning rapper and producer Lupe Fiasco will be joining the faculty—but he wants to make something very clear.

“I don’t think hip-hop needs any validation of any kind,” he says. “That’s not what this is about for me at all. I think Peabody and institutions of higher learning are going to learn a tremendous amount by having hip-hop. But entering into this space is not somehow a badge of honor.”

Fred Bronstein, Peabody’s dean, agrees. “Hip-hop was the logical next step for us,” he says.

He notes that Patrick had been an adjunct and then assistant professor at the conservatory since 2016—teaching hip-hop ensemble and Hip-Hop Music Production: History and Practice. And in general, the school has expanded its technology programs to prepare its students for an increasingly digitized world.

Today’s Peabody students are learning about film and video game scoring, computer music, sound design, musical engineering, and more, along with studying the established classical masters. They’ve had a jazz major since 2001. Bronstein feels that Patrick was uniquely positioned to teach at the school.

“One of the great things about Wendel is that he was trained as a classical pianist at a high level,” he says. “And he found his way into these other disciplines, most obviously hip-hop. I think he brings a breadth of knowledge and an understanding of how hip-hop fits into a wider musical context and relates to other disciplines.”

Bronstein also wants to dispel the stereotype of a Peabody student who is monomaniacally focused on classical music. They are young people who love music. And like most music-loving young people, they love hip-hop. “Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer Prize,” he points out.

So if Peabody is ready for hip-hop, the question remains, is hip-hop ready for Peabody? Eze Jackson, the local rap artist and impresario who has collaborated with Patrick on a variety of projects, welcomes this development.

“I think it’s exciting for hip-hop,” he says. “It’s exciting for Baltimore.”

He says he wishes that, back when he was a young man, a degree like this had been an option for him. “When I got out of high school, I was an emcee, but there was no place to study hip-hop. So I went in the Navy, pretty much to try to find myself,” he says. “I studied hip-hop on my own, as a student of the culture and the craft. But if I could have stayed home and gone to Peabody instead of going to the Navy, hell yeah!”

And Jackson thinks that anyone who sees this as somehow a sell-out of hip-hop culture is being painfully shortsighted.

“Hip-hop is such a limitless art form that I don’t think it gets credit for, so I think it’s dope that Peabody is taking this jump to be the first conservatory to offer it. It shows respect for a craft that we’ve always respected.”

What’s more, Jackson says Patrick is the perfect man to bring the subject to academia. “His knowledge of hip-hop is unmatched,” he says.

“IF I COULD’VE GONE TO PEABODY INSTEAD OF THE NAVY, HELL YEAH!” JACKSON SAYS.

Patrick is already receiving applications and he’s excited about the caliber of students who are applying to the major, which will officially launch in September. He envisions the program starting out small—maybe six to eight students in the first cohort—and growing from there.

“Peabody is an institution that is filled with very skilled students,” he says. “And that’s exactly what I want for this program. I want top level turntablists, MCs, beat boxers, and producers to come. And I’m excited to see what this first group of students is—it’s gonna be exciting for all of them, as well as for the new faculty.”

Meanwhile, there’s been another positive development in Patrick’s musical life. About 15 years ago, after accepting the fact that he may never play piano again, he started attending these “Out of Your Head” jazz improv sessions at the Windup Space. (Those sessions would ultimately become the inspiration for the Boom Bap Society.) He would play the electronic keyboard. And much to his surprise, he found that he could play. His index finger was still hard to control, but less so.

“That was pretty mind-altering for me,” he says. Apparently, the intuitive motion of improvisation—as opposed to the highly formal movement of classical performance—rewired his brain a bit. “And that’s when I started to approach [my focal dystonia] as more of a curiosity and a problem to be solved,” he says. “As opposed to, ‘I hope this thing just goes away.’”

Since then, it’s gotten better. Not perfect. But he’s making progress.

It’s not a coincidence that it was improv that brought on this revelation. It was the world of improv, of hip-hop, of electronica that saved him in a way, when he lost his ability to play Mozart and Chopin. He was able to thoroughly immerse himself in that music, reinvent himself—it brought him friends, fans, collaborators, incredible musical experiences across the world, all culminating in this new program at Peabody.

And now, in a perfect merging of Kevin Gift and Wendel Patrick, it had brought him back to the piano, his first love.

Rich Croce—also known by his stage name, MC Bravado—is passionate about working with organizations that teach the intersectionality of hip-hop and education. One of the local groups he works with, Beats Not Bullets, brings in instructors to teach at-risk youth how to make music and gain industry experience. The organization once sent Croce to Lake Clifton High School in Clifton Park to pass on the wisdom he’s accrued in his 17 years as an artist, and he found himself drawn to a particularly gifted student in the program.

“I [developed] an affinity [for] him,” says Croce, a former teacher at Lake Clifton. “He was a leader and ahead of the curve in the program. However, he wasn’t coming to class. I invited him to a performance I had at Baltimore Soundstage and offered to get him involved. I asked him what he thought I wanted from him, and he knew I wanted him to go to school. His attendance went up.”

It’s stories like these that Croce and his partner, Brandon Lackey—another former teacher —are hoping to use as they prepare an panel, entitled “Hip-Hop’s Emerging Educational Industry,” for the South by Southwest (SXSW) education conference, part of the larger annual music and film festival returning to Austin, Texas next month. The panel, happening on March 11, will feature a representative from the Boys and Girls Club of Baltimore, as well as content creator Michell Clark of MTV News. It will be followed up by a hip-hop showcase at SXSW on March 18 featuring artists like Wordsworth and Baltimore’s own Ollie Voso.

“Our thing has always been presenting Baltimore in a positive light to counteract any negative narrative and draw attention to the programs that are using education to reach youth,” Lackey says. “We’re highlighting those who are really trying to help young folks.”

This year, Charm City will be well-supported at the festival, as both TT the Artist’s directorial debut, and Charm City Kings—a Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith-backed film about dirt bike culture in Baltimore—are set to be screened.

As for Croce and Lackey, their partnership is rooted in music. Lackey owns a studio at Maryland Art Place downtown, where he employs engineers and teaches interns the ins-and-outs of music production. The two bonded over their similar career paths, as Lackey taught at New Hope Academy a year before Croce. They attended SXSW together last year, but they went as attendees rather than presenters.

Ahead of their panel and showcase, we spoke with the local artists about their hopes for the festival, creating music together—Croce is working on an album with Lackey that they are producing on their own label—and the niche they’ve carved out for themselves.

Which came first: making music or the idea for the panel?
BL: We had the common bond of education from the jump. It was always something we talked about. We’ve been to SXSW a bunch of times separately, but just seeing the whole edu side of what the new trends are, and then conversely what we’re doing with hip-hop—we know there’s a place for this.

Has the fact that you’ve been to the festival before helped shape your panel?
BL: Absolutely. Because there’s so many panels. It’s the same thing with the show. If you go to South by, there’s 100 shows happening all the time. It can’t just not suck—you have to do a lot to stand out. I just want it to be super engaging. It’s going to be very easy in a convention format for people to be up there and talk. But we really want to engage and connect with people and show how this is something that is really useful.

RC: Last year through a connection, I was able to play a showcase at SXSW. We were down there and networked. We had to really get ahead of the curve. We wanted to do our own event that occupied edu and music space. We were able to get someone who worked at the festival to give us a timeline and what it should look like and told us how to figure out how to pitch.

What is the relationship between music and education? How does it factor in to what you’re trying to accomplish?
BL: There’s a couple of Nas records where he says words in a different way that is [technically] the incorrect way. But that’s just a perfect example of how culture ends up influencing language. I think that’s the basis of the interaction right there. That’s where it starts. They have to work together.

RC: You could do a lesson in dialect on that. Your English lesson could be “Oh, this is dialect. Why does he say it like that? Well, he’s from New York.” You could talk about what was happening in the city at the time that made him write an introspective record about it.

Naturally the student-teacher relationship creates a bit of a power imbalance—do you think that connecting with kids over a shared interest helps remove that?
RC: The duality of this is interesting. Because kids are the keepers of what’s new and what’s cool. That can inform—even if our music is classic golden era type hip-hop, it can help give a flair to it that maybe it didn’t have before, and we can be kind of a bridge showing them what our stuff is like.

You’re establishing a commonality and they’re not looking to you as foreign. I think a lot of people that teach try to get caught up in proving they know so much. I’ve seen brilliant people flame out for that reason. You are vulnerable and you are learning together. As you continue to build that culture, that informs the music and the common ground and lets the whole ecosystem flourish.

How do you think what you’re trying to do is perceived?
RC: Hip-hop at its inception had the punk and cultural disruptor thing going. I think people only recently have accepted it as mainstream. A lot of times the everyday person who doesn’t know much about it or only knows what they hear on the radio might dismiss it in terms of its content and not really know the depth of what it can do. Getting rid of that stigma and idea is a big part of [what we’re doing]. As that continues to happen in mainstream pop culture, people are starting to see how viable hip-hop can be as a formal education tool. It had to be accepted on a grander scale.

There are certain norms in place when it comes to teaching. Do you find it’s hard to break through because of them?RC: Absolutely. I left teaching for a variety of reasons, but one of the things that bothered me was the way they set the curriculum up. It’s lined up every day for what you’re supposed to be going over and if a representative from the city walks in, they want to see you’re doing that exact thing on that date. They take so much of the autonomy and creativity out of it. How do you expect students to be treated as individuals if you’re that rigid? I get accountability, but [what we’re trying to do] can be something that helps that middle ground.

What’s the best case scenario for you with this panel?
BL: Having enough connections to do this at other festivals would be ideal. For me, it would be really cool if we meet some people who are interested in getting involved in these programs in Baltimore and to have outside representation outside of the city talking about what’s going on. If someone wants to make a difference somewhere, Baltimore is a place that could really use it.

Nico Sarbanes

Nico Sarbanes: Live in Baltimore (self-released)

When we think of Baltimore jazz, we think of a bygone era, filled with small nightclubs, three-piece suits, and plenty of cigarette smoke. But local jazz is alive and well, thanks to a number of surviving legends, as well as the next generation of stars, like the Dunbar Alumni Jazz Band and Nico Sarbanes. Professionally trained, Sarbanes is one of the city’s most talented (and under-the-radar) performers, playing a mean trumpet and confidently crooning in a style associated with the Great American Songbook. At 23 years old, the Baltimore native has just released his debut album, a set of live recordings from the acclaimed Mount Vernon music venue, An die Musik, that features some of his hometown heroes, including saxophonists Antonio Hart and Tim Green, vibraphonist Warren Wolf, and drummer Winard Harper. Across five accomplished jazz jams and standards—like a feel-good Baltimore original dedicated to a local Union Square barber, or an up-tempo, twinkling rendition of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s smoky “Ishafan”—Sarbanes connects and celebrates our city’s vibrant jazz community, and honors its rich history.

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Bond St. District

A Church On Vulcan (Friends Records)

In the summer of 2014, a young black rapper from West Baltimore met a young white percussionist from Montgomery County. In an unlikely twist of fate, the two instantly clicked, and by fall had released their first EP as the hip-hop duo Bond St. District, one of the city’s most animated, vivacious acts. MC DDm spits fire with his sharp, confident lyrics—at times clever and humorous, at others candid and poignant. Like a pastor pushing the gospel, DDm engages crowds with bona fide swagger, and his bodacious presence is only amplified by his right-hand man, producer Paul Hutson, who mixes in his masterful, multi-layered beats. Together, these distinct halves make a seamless whole, founded in a mutual respect for each other’s talent, and at live shows, their genuine chemistry is clear as soon as they hit the stage. But the strength of their bond is never more apparent than now, on their first full-length album, out exactly two years after their debut. From the rattling, energetic knocks of “Show Me Your Hands” to the lush, dreamy melodies of “How Come” and the sunny funk of “Yesterdays,” their infectious songs—and synergy—make you a forever fan.

See our full interview with DDm and Paul Hutson from Bond St. District.

Visual Art

Maren Hassinger: The Spirit of Things
Maren Hassinger’s four-decade career in art is rooted in sculpture and dance. A selection of her sculptures, made with wire rope, plastic bags, and newspapers, are on exhibit in the Contemporary Wing of the Baltimore Museum of Art in the solo show The Spirit of Things. Some have been reconfigured for this exhibition, which also contains video installations of her performance art and dance. She’s also known for her role at the Maryland Institute College of Art as director of the Rinehart School of Sculpture, which she has served since 1997. July 18-Nov. 25, performance and conversation with the artist at 3 p.m. Sept. 8. BMA, 10 Art Museum Drive.

ISLA: Regarding Paradise
Ironically, the etymology of the word “paradise” goes back to its Greek and Old Iranian roots meaning “walled enclosure.” In this group exhibit at Towson University, curated by Baltimore artist Jackie Milad, contemporary artists working in an array of mediums examine the figurative and literal walls that enclose the pristine beach images of the Caribbean islands, a place that has worked toward political autonomy and environmental justice. Sept.7-Oct. 20. Reception on Sept. 6. Center for the Arts Gallery at Towson University, 8000 York Rd., Towson.

DOS-à-DOS
Baltimore artists L. Nef’fahtiti Partlow-Myrick and Jenny O’Grady met as students in the Creative Writing and Publishing Arts master’s program at the University of Baltimore and will now exhibit the fruits of their labor: a collection of art books, made from a variety of materials both traditional and unorthodox (paper—but also metal and beans, for example). The show’s title references a bookbinding technique that ties together two text blocks with a shared spine-that spine being the MFA program, in this context. Sept. 7-30. Hamilton Gallery, 5502 Harford Road.

Baker Artist Awards 2017 & 2018
Recent Baker Awards awardees—Abraham Burickson (interdisciplinary, 2018), Sara Dittrich (interdisciplinary, 2017), David Marion (visual art, 2017), and Amy Sherald (visual art, 2018)—will show work in an exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Included in the show will be Burickson’s “The Odyssey Works Box,” an archival box filled with books, photographs, and other ephemera, accompanied by a video tour of the history of the arts collective Odyssey Works; Dittrich’s wall sculptures, arranged with hundreds of clay ears; Marion’s multimedia sculptures “Extinction Event” and “Fracking,” which explore violence perpetrated on the natural environment; and two portraits by Sherald. Sept. 12-Oct. 14, with a free opening event with performances on Sept. 13. Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive.

Balancing Act
Joseph Paul Cassar has been working in Baltimore for 13 years as a visual artist and art historian, and is a professor at the University of Maryland University College. He’s shown his work around the world, and this month will exhibit in our city, when Y:ART Gallery in Highlandtown shows his recent work in Balancing Act—drawings in ink and pastel, paper cut-outs, collage, and acrylic on canvas. Sept. 12-Oct. 20, opening reception from 6-9 p.m. Sept. 15, artist talk from 4-6 p.m. Oct. 13. Y:Art Gallery, 3402 Gough St.

Mark Bradford: Tomorrow is Another Day
Renowned contemporary artist Mark Bradford represented the U.S. at the 2017 Venice Biennale and will bring that work to Baltimore for the exhibit Tomorrow is Another Day, accompanied by a new site-specific installation, at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Bradford explores themes from his personal life, black identity, Greek mythology, and the universe through mixed-media pieces, paintings, and video. Sept. 23, 2018-March 3, 2019; opening celebration, 1-5 p.m. Sept. 23. Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive.

What Makes Us (Us)
Gina Pierleoni exhibits some 200 paintings and mixed-media portraits of people encountered over a 25-year period in Baltimore and beyond. She’ll lead a coinciding workshop which will include live music to help to dig deeper into questions of place and perception. Aug. 25-Sept. 29; workshop, 6-7:30 p.m. Sept. 15. Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Ave.

AfriCOBRA: The Evolution of a Movement
This group exhibit at Galerie Myrtis celebrates artists in AfriCOBRA, aka African Commune for Bad Relevant Artists, a coalition that was born from the black arts movement that began in the 1960s and is now celebrating its 50th anniversary. The aesthetic of these artists emerged from activism and aims to speak to black people specifically. The show will display paintings, photographs, prints, and 3-D pieces by the group’s earliest and most recent members, including Akili Ron Anderson, Kevin Cole, Adger Cowans, Michael D. Harris, Napoleon Jones-Henderson (founding member), James Phillips, Frank Smith, Nelson Stevens (founding member), and Renee Stout. Coinciding programming will include Tea with Myrtis (as in, founding director of Galerie Myrtis, Myrtis Bedolla) and an art salon with AfriCOBRA members who will talk about their artwork and its impact on the black arts movement. Sept. 15-Oct. 17, with an opening reception from 5-7 p.m. Sept. 15. Galerie Myrtis Fine Art, 2224 N. Charles St.

Music

Taste of Tuva
Celebrated artist Joyce Scott will host this special evening featuring the music, art, and food of Asia. Alash Ensemble, a trio of throat singers from the Central Asian state of Tuva, will bring both their music and culinary specialties, while collaborating with Baltimore musicians Shodekeh and J Pope. The event supports the Asian Arts & Culture Center at Towson University. 6-9 p.m. Sept. 15. TU South Campus Pavilion at Towson University, 8000 York Rd.

Abdu Ali’s Last Show of 2018
Baltimore music artist Abdu Ali will perform their last live show of the year this month at Metro Gallery, joined by Kotic Couture (hip-hop with pop, Baltimore club, and underground art influences), Pamela_ and her sons (the solo music project of Alessandra Hoshor), and W00dy (Philadelphia-based experimental pop artist). 8 p.m. Sept. 5. Metro Gallery, 1700 N. Charles St.

BeatClub at the Lewis
Over the years, Bmore BeatClub has met regularly inside clubs, bars, and initially a record shop to celebrate hip-hop and beats. Novice artists rap alongside experts at these gatherings, and this month’s event will be extra special, as Bmore BeatClub will bring hip-hop, spoken word, and poetry to the Reginald F. Lewis Museum. 7 p.m. Sept. 28. Reginald F. Lewis Museum, 830 E. Pratt St.

Theater

Fades and Fellowship Barbershop Stories
Barbershops are places of conversation and camaraderie—and from this idea came the production Barbershop Stories by Baltimore-based theater troupe Fades & Fellowship. A cast of real barbers will perform the stories overheard in the shop—and then give actual haircuts to selected audience members. Sept. 28. The Motor House, 120 W. North Ave.

Literary Arts

CityLit Swing: A Special Celebration Honoring Kwame Alexander
CityLit will honor poet, educator and New York Times bestselling children’s author Kwame Alexander with its Chic Dambach Award for Service to the Literary Arts during a celebratory evening at The Motor House. Sliding-Scale tickets are available for this CityLit fundraiser, which will include lite fare, libations, jazz, and a reading by Alexander. 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Sept. 13. The Motor House, 120 W. North Ave.

Small Press Expo
The annual Small Press Expo celebrates indie cartooning and comic arts, bringing more than 4,000 creatives to Bethesda for readings, workshops, and to meet with one another. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Sept. 15 and noon-6 p.m. Sept. 16. Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, 5701 Marinelli Road, North Bethesda

Miscellanea

Mortified: Share the Shame
Everyday adults share their most mortifying moments via teenage diary entries, poems, love letters, lyrics, and locker notes in this popular show. 6 and 8 p.m. Sept. 22. Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Ave.

Mono Practice
Founding director Ruri Yi is opening a new contemporary art gallery, Mono Practice, in Station North this month, with a focus on abstract and reductive art. The inaugural exhibit, Pointing To The Sun | An Exercise In Abstraction, is curated by Rod Malin and will feature work by Baltimore-based artists David Brown, Zoë Charlton, Ariel Cavalcante Foster, Terence Hannum, Stephen Hendee, Bill Schmidt, and Yi. Sept. 6-Oct. 13, with an opening reception from 6-9 p.m. Sept. 6. Mono Practice, 212 McAllister St.

True Laurels has evolved from a blog to a fan zine to a glossy print publication since it began in 2011, and its next iteration begins tonight, when Red Bull Radio launches True Laurels radio show at 6 p.m.

True Laurels founding editor Lawrence Burney will be joined live in the studio in New York with Baltimore legend Lor Choc, the 20-year-old West Baltimore R&B hip-hop artist featured on the cover of issue 3 of the print edition.

The hour-long radio show will stream live each Wednesday on redbullradio.com, hosted by Burney and exploring the music and culture across the African diaspora through discussions with artists, journalists, and other guests who can bring insight and perspective.

A Baltimore native, Burney sees music as a byproduct of society and wants to investigate those connections, covering music from his home region as well as the South, the Caribbean, West Africa, and beyond.

Also a staff writer for Noisey, Lawrence splits his time between Baltimore and Brooklyn.

“To me, the music is not just the music,” Lawrence told Baltimore in an interview earlier this year. “Music is the best introduction to any society. That’s why it has to be taken seriously.”

Under a dramatic black light inside The Windup Space in Station North, MCs are called onto the small stage, two at a time. The packed crowd hoots and hollers as these novice and veteran rappers are given the task of rhyming over beats they’ve never heard before. However daunting, each rapper approaches the mic like a jazz artist, taking turns freestyling and testing new bars as if trading fours. “This is what it’s about!” shouts host Eze Jackson from the stage. “It’s about building the culture.”

This is the latest installment of the Bmore BeatClub, a hip-hop open-mic series, now in its third year. The event is a platform for emerging artists who want to step up their game, as well as for producers who are scoping out new talent and people like its founder, Brandon Lackey, who want to help the Baltimore hip-hop community grow.

“BeatClub is really a family,” says co-producer and EDM DJ Marat Buberman. “Everyone here is supportive. . . . We know what it’s like to be struggling artists.”

With the help of dedicated staff and friends, Lackey, a producer himself, and his Lineup Room Recording Studio have been producing BeatClub since it was a free, BYOB event at the now-defunct Shockwave Records store in Parkville. What began as a way for young producers to show off their beats has evolved into an open-mic with MCs rapping over tracks and drawing hordes of hip-hop fans from Baltimore and beyond.

BeatClub has grown out of its former venues, including, most recently, the basement of the Maryland Art Place—a setting Lackey describes as Cheers meets 8 Mile—and into a bimonthly series at the larger Windup Space that also includes an epic all-night dance party. “I wanted to kill it or grow it,” says Lackey. “I didn’t want it to get stale.”

The most important thing to understand is that BeatClub is not a battle. The stage acts as an even playing field, with national legends like Bobbito and Psycho Les standing alongside fresh-faced up-and-comers, some of whom have gone on to bigger things, like creating collaborative EPs, opening for big-name acts at Baltimore Soundstage, and performing at Artscape.

Those incentives create the hungry edge that keeps artists coming back. As Lackey puts it, “That’s the competition.”

J Pope and the HearNow 

Soul Searching (self-released)

One of Baltimore’s most anticipated albums finally dropped this summer. After years of performing around town, this alt-soul collective has released its debut, bottling a dynamic sound that we weren’t sure could be captured outside of a live setting. But on this new record, produced by local beat wizard Wendel Patrick, the soulful sextet, led by frontwoman Jasmine Pope, leaves us wanting nothing but more. Fusing a medley of genres—blues, funk, soul, hip-hop, R&B—Pope showcases her lyrical flair and finesse, zigging and zagging between honey-coated verses and fast-paced rhymes, all delivered with a sophisticated swagger. On each track, her voice is only amplified by her bandmates and their masterful improvisations, filled with heavy runs of bass, the pitter-patter of hand drums, and smoky swirls of sax. Most songs are slow-burning, jazz-influenced numbers, but there are also swift, somewhat-frenzied rhythms, like “Let Them Come” and “Spaz Out,” which truly stand out. The latter is a freestyle feat that’s so pure and raw, it could almost pass as punk rock.

J. Roddy Walston and the Business

Destroyers of the Soft Life (ATO Records) 

It’s been four long years since J. Roddy Walston released new music with his hard-rocking band, the Business. It’s been even longer since they all lived here in 2010—but since their pre-breakout days were spent in Baltimore, we still consider them our own. The years have been kind to the quartet. In a way, this fourth full-length album is a coming-of-age moment for the soulful Southern rockers, as they find more clarity and balance in their giant sound, returning bigger and bolder than ever—but also far more full of light. Walston’s soaring vocals come to the forefront, while the blazing guitar, nimble drums, and pounding ivories balance their time in the sun. Across 10 songs, they confront the past and imperfections with brutal honesty. A new father himself, Walston addresses an estranged dad in “The Wanting,” as well as smoking-and-drinking sins in “I Called You” and “Bad Habits.” Through valleys and peaks, his gospel upbringing shines through, and he finds some sort of acceptance along the way. The band concludes each anthem—be it a raucous rock number or wistful melody—standing powerful and triumphant, somewhere  between the old and new versions of themselves.

See our full interview with J. Roddy Walston and The Business.

[Editor’s Note: Evan Wallace, aka e-dubble, passed away on February 13 at the age of 34. According to XXL, the rapper was suffering from “an aggressive infection, which spread throughout his body.” Fans from all over the world have taken to social media to mourn his loss, including one from Ontario, who simply said, “He will always be a king in our eyes.” In 2014, we recounted his rise to underground fame and detailed the legacy he leaves behind.”]

These days, success is measured in hits, tweets, and likes. So if
we’re talking about a Baltimore musician with 23 million YouTube views, 9
million streams on sites like Spotify, and 91,000 fans on Facebook, you
might expect to have heard the buzz. In the case of Evan Wallace, aka
e-dubble, chances are you haven’t. It’s an ironic wrinkle in this
virtual-marketing era that a rising rap star like e-dubble—a short form
of Wallace’s initials—can reach millions of fans around the world yet
remain largely unknown at home. Physically, the 31-year-old Wallace is
hard to miss. Nearly 7 feet tall, he is a mountain of a man with dark
green eyes radiating intensity. In a brown zippered cardigan, 501 jeans,
and a Polo beanie pulled over his brush cut, he looks more like an art
student or a lumberjack than a typical hip-hop artist.

His music is atypical, too. Wallace eschews the genre’s classic
themes—street life, mayhem, various ways of spending lots of money—to
write about the trials of a regular guy. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure it was
a story worth telling,” Wallace says, sitting on the couch in the South
Federal Hill apartment he shares with his manager, Justin Barker.

“He’s just a normal person with normal problems, and a lot of
listeners can relate to that,” adds Barker, unpacking Starbucks
breakfast sandwiches in the kitchen. Barker, like Wallace, doesn’t fit
the hip-hop mold. With his pale blue eyes and blond curls, he could be
straight outta Minnesota.

“I don’t know if I’d say normal,” Wallace replies. The reticent giant
and his buttoned-up best friend bicker and correct each other
constantly. (“They never stop, they’re like an old married couple,”
notes Brandon Lackey, who records Wallace’s tracks in his Parkville
studio.)

Their high-ceilinged, modern apartment has a minimalist feel, mostly
because Wallace hasn’t found time to unpack since they moved in six
months ago. Only two things have made it onto the walls so far: a large
whiteboard covered with tour dates and a small painting of a young
Wallace holding a toy gun that was commissioned for an e-dubble album
cover.

There are exactly four books on the shelves: Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Joy of Sex (a gift from a college girlfriend, Wallace mumbles), Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, and a musician’s guide to PR and marketing.

While Barker’s room is neat as a pin, Wallace’s is a morass of
clothing and size 15 sneakers interrupted only by home-studio equipment
(computer, microphone, MIDI keyboard, and pre-amp) for recording demos
and rough mixes.

The apartment includes one other inhabitant, Wallace’s beloved dog,
Lewis, a golden retriever/mutt he rescued. “I think she knows I saved
her,” he says, as she gazes at him devotedly.

It’s taken Wallace and Barker years of work to get to this point: the
impressive Internet presence, steady concert bookings, and a revenue
stream that supports both of them and pays the rent. The next step is a
big one, though—the one where e-dubble steps into the spotlight.

And there have been unexpected stumbling blocks in the past.

Wallace
grew up outside of Philadelphia, the youngest child of a principal and a
schoolteacher. Like a lot of boys in the early 1990s, he and his
friends fell under the spell of hip-hop cast by Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre.
He played center—of course—on the Wissahickon High basketball team and
dreamed of being a rapper. As a white guy, he didn’t have many role
models for being a solo MC. In fact, the only one he knew about was the
much-maligned Vanilla Ice.

Then, Eminem hit it big with the Slim Shady LP in 1999. “I
remember how hyped we were,” recalls Wallace. “Eminem showed that a
white rapper could have a career. It was about skills, whether or not
you could do it.”

By then, Wallace had begun making his own beats using a drum machine
and sampler from RadioShack. But writing rhymes to go with them didn’t
come as easily.

“There’s a kind of outgoing, boisterous MC personality that wasn’t me
at all,” he explains. “I was never the guy who was gonna take over a
room.”

He kept thinking he’d meet a rapper to work with, but by the time
he’d graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a degree in
political science, no one had materialized. Finally, he started writing
himself. And if his story—sensitive white boy from the suburbs drinks
beer, likes girls, is alienated—wasn’t as dramatic and violent as those
of the rappers he admired, maybe those differences gave it legitimacy.

Wallace’s first album, 2009’s Hip-Hop Is Good, was virtually
a one-man effort, written, recorded, and produced while living in a
Hampden warehouse with college friends. One of them helped with the
cover art. Barker took on marketing and business duties.

To get attention, he and Wallace developed an ambitious strategy that
involved releasing a new e-dubble track every Friday for an entire
year, starting in January 2011. They bombarded key rap bloggers with
the weekly releases, hoping to get exposure via social media.

It started slowly, one Myspace post and Facebook comment at a time,
as listeners noticed that Wallace’s version of hip-hop was a little
different from anything they’d heard. He sampled Guns N’ Roses, The
Black Keys, and Tom Petty; recorded long, idiosyncratic outros in which
he mentioned NCAA scores, current events, or football news; and, where
other rappers peppered their songs with shout-outs to Biggie and Tupac,
Wallace rapped about Diane Rehm and name-checked John Cusack, Carrot
Top, and Tracy Chapman.

“Honestly, I didn’t like him at first,” says Jacob Moore, founder of the influential Pigeons and Planes blog. “I thought he was kind of corny.”

But, by the 37th installment of Freestyle Fridays, Moore had changed
his mind. “The sample translates perfectly into a contagious
I’m-gonna-hum-you-all-day beat,” Moore wrote about that track (simply
titled “Get On Board”). “E-dub’s message and delivery is as clear and
sharp as a shard of glass.”

Once converted, Moore became a key ally, posting praise and featuring
Wallace at a showcase in New York. By the time Wallace and Barker
released a mix-tape of the Freestyle Friday songs, titled
Written Thursday,
on their Black Paisley Records label, their plan was working. The
compilation was downloaded 10,000 times the first month it was posted,
T-shirts were printed, and shows were booked at The 8×10 Club and out of
town. Wallace quit his day job at a Fells Point bar.

But just when Wallace’s career was gathering speed, it took a sudden
U-turn. The intense schedule of Freestyle Fridays had gotten Wallace
into a “routine I can’t recommend to anyone,” he says, noting that he
was working furiously for half the week and celebrating the other half.
“And by celebration, I mean vodka,” he adds.

Soon he was running on empty, depressed, and questioning his choice
of careers. “I was in euphoria for so long I didn’t realize there was a
ceiling—until I hit it,” he says.

He went to a therapist, who put him on a cocktail of anti-depressants
and other drugs. They seriously backfired. The manic episodes that
ensued included wild drives on the Beltway, a crazy night spent painting
all the mirrors in the house blue, and another night punching holes in
the walls.

Barker watched the meltdown with extreme concern, before finally
breaking down and calling Wallace’s father for help. After a week in a
psych ward, Wallace spent nine months living in Philly with his parents
and his dog. “Lewis had been with me for every single Freestyle Friday I
recorded,” he says, “and she was my muse and my sounding board as I
started working again in my parents’ basement.”

Writing was the best therapy of all, Wallace found. “Not only was it
cathartic to put the feelings into words, but it rebuilt my self-esteem
and confidence,” he says.

By the time he and Lewis returned to
Baltimore, Wallace had finished Reset, an album telling the story of his
breakdown and tracking his recovery.

With its video-game metaphor for getting a second chance—Hit a little button, everything will be all right—the title song is a generational anthem with an infectious melody and a name-check of Han Solo.

Released in November 2012, Reset was welcomed by the growing army of
e-dubble fans. It debuted at No. 8 on the iTunes hip-hop chart and was
pegged as a “Heatseeker” in
Billboard.

Since then, Wallace and Barker have been working to expand their
reach. “There’s only so much you can do with two guys and a computer,
working your ass off with three hours of sleep for years on end,” says
Barker. “At a certain point, you need a live show, videos, and a touring
setup, and that takes money, relationships, and credibility.”

Those things have begun to come together. Wallace has been gigging
with a backing band just like fellow Philly natives The Roots. (Full
disclosure: my son, Vince, is his bassist.) He’s been touring mostly up
and down the East Coast and into the South, and, in March, he’ll play
South By Southwest, the music industry’s biggest showcase event, in
Austin, TX.

At this point, Jacob Moore suggests that Wallace’s reserved
personality is the last serious stumbling block he has to surmount. “For
the first year or so of being familiar with e-dubble,” he says, “I
didn’t know what he looked like, who he was, what he was all about. He
refused to sell himself. He didn’t even have real press pics. For a
while, I remember he was using one where his face was blurry and a dog,
[Lewis], was sitting on his lap. One picture of him, well-styled and
looking 7-feet tall, and he could have gotten a lot of attention.
Instead, he’s sending out iPhone pics of the dog.”

Wallace admits it’s true. He hates self-promotion, and has always
wanted to believe the music would speak for itself. But he has come to
understand that image is essential. “For the music to be heard, I need
to be seen,” he says.

As he talks about upping his profile, Barker pulls out his phone and
pulls up an e-mail that floated a possible Puma endorsement Wallace’s
way. Coming via
The Fader magazine, it mentioned providing Wallace “cool kicks and gear” for his South By Southwest show.

Though the Puma connection could reap some reward, Wallace doubts the
company will have anything in his size. “It would have to be double-X,”
he says.

“Double?” repeats Barker dubiously. “You mean triple.”

“I wear double-X sometimes,” Wallace counters.

In any case, it’s gonna have to be big. It’s all gonna have to be
big. E-dubble is going big, and it’s not just his sneakers and gear.

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Listen to Wallace’s recent work, including “The Grey (radio edit),” below.