They rap about fighting to avoid the drugs that saturate their bleak neighborhood streets, about staying alive in a community rife with guns and violence.
The subject matter is conventional rap fodder. But the menacing environment the new rap trio Faces of Funk gets lyrical about isn't Compton or the South Bronx.
But rather ... Annapolis Gardens.
Yes, Annapolis. The starchy, historic-with-a-capital-H city many view as a more likely breeding ground for a German polka troupe than the next It-group in hip-hop.
"Some people say, `What are they gonna rap about? Shopping at the mall?' " says one member of Faces of Funk, Orlando "Smallz" Craig, a 24-year-old Annapolis native.
"If you're from New York and people hear you rap about drugs, they can believe it -- when people think of Annapolis, they think downtown, waterfront," adds Irvin "Papoose" Crowdy, 28, the other group member from Annapolis. Jermaine "Big Milk" Lowe, 26, lives in northwest Washington. "If you're from Annapolis, people just don't know what to expect."
Well, expect this -- a surprising debut.
The group's first album, "Tales of the Funk," was distributed to Annapolis and Anne Arundel County stores in November and ran up record sales for a local band on an independent label at Tower Records in Annapolis Harbor Center. The sales manager, Lovell Brown, promptly dubbed it "Annapolis' No. 1 Rap Group."
Moreover, Brown said the album became the sixth best-selling rap album in its first week, higher than recent releases by major-label artists like Method Man and Jay-Z. The album sold more than 70 CDs and cassettes at Tower and a total of 500 throughout the county.
Normally, "for a person who doesn't have a major-label or minor-label distribution, we'd be lucky if we sold five a month," Brown said. Selling albums is cool and all, but group members have their egos set on something far bigger: making their home turf the next hip-hop nation a la Master P, whose rap empire has cast the spotlight on his hometown of Baton Rouge, La.
"You've got Ice Cube out west, you've got Master P down South, but as far as Maryland, Virginia, D.C., Baltimore, there's been no one person that's come out and said, `Just follow us and we're going to take us to the top,' " Crowdy said. "We want to put this little area on the map."
Well, Faces of Funk sales are "not that impressive," says Minya Oh, music lifestyles editor at Vibe magazine.
