Everybody Do the Spongebob

No less a Baltimorean than The Wire's Chris Partlow, a brutal enforcer for precocious drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield, once claimed that familiarity with Baltimore Club music is obligatory for any true city resident. While acquaintance with the repertoire of Young Leek may not be the life-or-death scenario it becomes when Chris and his partner Snoop roll up on an interloping New York mofucka, it is perhaps only a matter of time before Leek's "Shake It & Jiggle It" and other Baltimore Club hits find their way into the mainstream.

If Baltimore Club stands alone as an indigenous genre of music, DJ Scottie B could be considered its Chuck Berry. A native of West Baltimore's Park Heights neighborhood, Scottie has been merging hip-hop, house, and club beats with the filthiest of vocal samples since the early '80s at clubs across Bmore and beyond. This month he'll take his act on a tour across Western Europe. "They like it, because to them it's dance music, and a lot of stuff that they hear doesn't have cussing in it," the 40-year-old DJ says of his European audience. It's only natural that Europeans respond positively to the thumping beats of Club music, as Scottie concedes: "It doesn't take them very far from what they like."