Speed of the Pittsburgh Sound welcomes you to the second half of the second edition of Speed Trials.  This time around, we aim to bring you all those beat makers and rhymesayers that call the steel city home.  As I have mentioned before, Pittsburgh is lucky to be spoiled with more visionary laptop-DJ’s (Tobacco, Power Pill Fist, Discuss), tastemaking sample-smiths (the illustrious Girl Talk, Skymall) and wit stealing mc’s (Wiz Khalifa, Grand Buffet, Bloodmoney, Boaz) than most cities can ever dream of.  Scaling the review down to only four tracks from such a deep talent pool was no easy task.

In addition to all this home grown talent, spots like The New Amsterdam and Shadow Lounge continue to bring some seriously challenging hip-hop into the Pittsburgh scene. Some upcoming shows include Wale (pronounced Wall-ay) at The Shadow Lounge on May 22 and Vast Aire of Cannibal Ox at the Thunderbird Cafe on June 13.  Now that we have established the steel city can bring that boom boom boom as good as any other scene in America, onto the tracks.  Continue reading →