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P. Blackk Article

Young rapper’s new mixtape reflects timeless cool of hip hop

Posted: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:00 am | Updated: 6:28 pm, Wed Mar 2, 2011.

BY WES FLEXNER | 0 comments

Columbus emcee P Blackk moved from Baltimore to Hilliard when he was in the eighth grade. I’ve never been to Baltimore, so I asked the 18-year-old of Haitian descent if Hilliard and Baltimore were similar.

“No,” he said. “Have you seen the show the Wire? It’s like that.”

Answering riveting questions from reporters wasn’t the only thing P accomplished this week. He also dropped a new mixtape, It’s Always Sunny in Columbus, on Tuesday. It’s available for download on LefortheUncool’s lifestyle blog athttp://milknsyrup.com (Blackk met LE at a Lupe show, which lead him to jump on the J-Rawls-produced song on LE’s Anti-Parachute Theory as well as some writing for Milk N Syrup)

On the heels of this mixtape, Blackk will open for Dame Dash and Lil Wayne’s buddy, Curren$y, in his “Where’s Smokey Robinson” Tour Friday night at Skully’s .

The Columbus College of Art and Design freshman arrived at the interview fresh off studies about Andy Warhol. Blackk was wearing boat shoes and a jean jacket that would’ve made him the James Dean of Downtown 81, aka New York Beat Movie.

Yet, despite his Maryland roots and his dapper style, don’t lump him in with dance rap like SpankRock or other Baltimore club music that had the hipsters going crazy a few years ago. That isn’t Blackk’s thing.

His first musical influence was golden-era hip hop like Heltah Skeltah, Nas, Jay-z and Wu. Blackk peeped the East Coast staples from older cousins who lived in New York and Jersey.

“Back then I hated it” Blackk said, discussing early exposure to Bmore Club. “Now that I moved out I here, I miss it and I regret that I hated it. The first CD I bought was Nas’ Stillmatic in fifth grade. So at the time I felt like they (Bmore club rappers) weren’t saying anything. I’ve grown to appreciate it.”

On P’s new mixtape, a follow-up to January’s Chicken N Waffles, Blackk stays in the hip hop lane.

Blackk’s flow is somewhat like the Pharcyde, with a tad of LE’s influence in the delivery. On "Columbus Clipper,” P rhymes over the 1995 DJ Premier produced “Return of the Crooklyn Dodgers,” renamed for a 614 state of mind. Even though it’s a classic beat, Blackk appropriated it with some with some 2010 means, “I just YouTube the instrumental and ripped it off of YouTube,” Blackk admitted.

The 18-song tape is mixed by CJ Townsend, and also has Blackk rhyming over jacked instrumentals by Kanye, Jay Electronica, Raekwon, and the posse cut “Leflaur Leflah Eskashka.”

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