words Jiro Kohl
photos Jimmy Fontaine
After entering a door in the side of a wall—on an industrial block with nothing but wall space, the purpose of Blaqstarr’s isolated domicile in East Baltimore’s Greenmount neighborhood becomes strikingly obvious. Decorated by several Jamaican wooden figures, a poster of Miles Davis and a few LP covers nailed to the wall, Blaqstarr’s studio, which he calls The Cloud, is like a sauna of creative energy. “This [is] just somewhere I had to section off and let my thoughts free when I’m in town. When I’m in town I usually just trap myself in here to keep my creative juices flowing,” the 22-year-old producer, singer, rapper and songwriter explains. After owning local radio and club play for four years, Blaqstarr’s name has only recently begun to ring out outside of Charm City, due to his production work for M.I.A.’s Kala, a partnership with Diplo and his label, Mad Decent. With the genre of Baltimore club growing in popularity outside the city, Blaqstarr is set to serve as the ambassador for the sound of his hometown.
On this day, Blaqstarr, born Charles J. Smith, is cooking up two spinach quiches with the help of his mother, Brenda Loving, after his little sister cancelled on him at the last minute. Although Blaq does most of his cooking in the studio, straight filleting Baltimore club tracks, Southern bounce raps and soulful croonings, the menu today is inspired by his mother’s way of cooking quiches. A fan of soul food, Blaq makes sure to check out the local spots at every city he goes to, but chose a quiche menu because he liked it when his mother made it. Although it’s his first attempt at making the meal, he is ready, and with instructions from his mother, begins by washing off the peppers and cutting them into one inch strips.
While he chops up the veggies, Blaqstarr explains how he started his craft as a DJ at the age of 14. Back then, Baltimore club was a part of the city, built into the backbone as much as blue crabs, Old Bay, and a high crime rate. “Being from Baltimore, where it was made, it was everywhere,” Blaqstarr remembers, throwing peppers in a pan. “Like on the mixtapes I would always fiend [for] when I was younger, from the DJs like Scottie B—it was almost like tradition.” With no oil or butter to be found in his kitchen, his mother sighs and heats the peppers on a dry pan along with two cloves of garlic and a half a teaspoon of seasoning salt, while Blaqstarr suggests Ranch dressing as a non-sticking agent. As the peppers cook, he turns on the oven to preheat to 275 degrees. Although club music is engrained in Bodymore, Blaq feels that the city’s attitude towards it has changed in recent years. “It’s not as appreciated as it was [when it was] first introduced to the city,” he says. “Now, it’s almost a separation, people are almost like, ‘I don’t like club music. I ain’t in the club.’ It should be more support. It’s our sound of our city.”
Blaqstarr’s recipe for music produced more local hits like D.O.G.’s “Ryda Gyrl” and Young Leek’s “Jiggle It.” Both of which he produced, in addition to singing the hook on “Ryda Gyrl,” which turned into the summer anthem of ‘06. With his ability to fuse together club and rap, and his signature gunshot sound, even those who stay on the block and out of the club can’t help but feel it in the air. Blaqstarr might be a new name for some around the country, but virtually every rap song or club track to dominate Baltimore radio in the last four years has been backed by his otherworldly, melodic yet tenacious beats. While Brenda and her son discuss Blaq’s eating habits as a kid and his stint as a vegetarian, he beats two eggs in a bowl, then mixes in one cup of milk and defrosts the bag of frozen spinach in the microwave. After the spinach is defrosted, he adds that to the bowl as well, along with several hand-fulls of each kind of cheese. With an occasional “yeah, shawty, yeah,” Blaqstarr continues to mix ingredients, and appears pleased with the way his meal is shaping up.
Blaqstarr’s first local hit came in 2002 with the most-requested song, “Tote It.” A flurry of gunshots, chants and pounding bass, the song put Blaq on the map, and he has since emerged as club music’s greatest innovator yet. “The elements that I add to it, give it a more musically inclined feel—not too many samples,” he explains. “If I sample, I sample my voice or something. On my older tracks, I’d try to keep everything, like bring it from the dirt.” Following his mother’s instructions, Blaq pours the egg mixture into the pan with the peppers, and stirs all the ingredients together. At the same time, he puts the pie shells into the heated oven, and keeps them there until the bottoms are brownish, and able to hold the quiche filling. Blaq then removes the browned pie shells from the oven and pours the contents of his pan into the shells, distributing the cheesy goodness equally between the two, and sprinkles a little extra cheese on top for good measure. He then turns the oven up to 275 and puts the quiches in to cook.
“Tote It,” the gun-carrying anthem began to bridge the gap between the G’s and club heads, to a point where, “Dudes were coming up to me like. ‘Yo, I don’t even fuck with club shit, but that gunshot shit…I’m a gangster, I fuck with that,’” he remembers. “At a party, I played it once and the whole crowd went crazy, then I stopped the whole song, like, Hold up! Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. I have dreams sometimes about the first time I played that,” he remembers, smiling. “It was like 900 people in a place that probably holds 500, so the fire marshall shut the party down. That was the shit, yo. That was my motivation—the people.”
Cutting into the first of his culinary masterpieces, Blaqstarr exclaims, “this that high times food,” obviously pleased that his weed induced hunger will soon be satisfied. Though attention outside his hometown has been slow to come, Blaqstarr welcomes the challenge. “I like the feeling of progress. I like going out there and being the first time heard and they liking it. I’m sending stuff up there and they like it. I can keep coming up there, and make them like it,” he explains. Because ultimately, for Blaq, it’s about the music, the people and the City. “Everybody in Baltimore like, ‘Oh, yeah, Blaqstarr made that.’ ‘Yeah, I know him, his parties be rockin’. It’s almost like inspiration. If I could do it, they could do it.”
BLAQSTARR’S QUICHE
1/2 green pepper
2 eggs
1 cup of milk
1 bag of frozen creamed spinach
2 handfuls of shredded mozzarella cheese
2 handfuls of shredded parmesan cheese
2 handfuls of shredded cheddar cheese
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon of seasoning salt
1 cup of milk
2 pie shells
Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Wash peppers, and cut them into thin, one-inch long slices. In a large bowl, beat two eggs and add one cup of milk. In a frying pan, saute peppers with two cloves of garlic, cut into small pieces and a half a teaspoon of seasoning salt. Defrost bag of creamed spinach in microwave, then add to bowl off eggs and milk. Add two handfuls of each kind of cheese to bowl and mix. Put two pie shells in the oven, and remove when they become slightly brown, then turn up the oven to about 300 degrees. Pour contents of bowl into frying pan containing peppers and mix together. Pour peppers and egg mix into the pie shells and put into oven. Bake for about 30 minutes, until tops are golden brown.
