Scottie B

• Genre: Beats & Breaks

About

Baltimore's Scottie B is one of the pioneers of Baltimore's club-music scene, an unrepentantly underground milieu where acid house meets booty bass and gives way to one of the filthiest emcee battles you've ever imagined. (Think hip-house, if only it had remained, you know, credible.) Since the mid-'90s, he and collaborator Shawn Caesar have run Unruly Records, one of Baltimore's premiere imprints, and his raw, unvarnished style, which takes in vintage funk breaks, overdriven vocal samples and gunshot percussion, has been crucial in the development of the city's characteristic sound. But the producer, DJ and entrepreneur hasn't been content to rest on his city's rep; toward the end of the '00s, as club music began to catch on internationally, he began reaching out to include other sounds from the bass diaspora, like funk carioca, grime and "fidget house." Unlike many originators, he doesn't seem overly protective of his scene: "I was there when [it] started," he told the Baltimore City Paper. "So anything plus one is good to me."

- Philip Sherburne