Amp Boogie - Gotta Git On The EP - 1994

Time goes by so fast ... 25 years ago the Baltimore-based group Amp Boogie released their classic 5-Track EP titled "Gotta Git On".

The group originally consisted of Los Boogie, Mudd, DJ Booman and Wilmo. Their project came out in 1994 on Papa Bear Entertainment, a record label managed by Nate Brunson a.k.a Papa Bear who was also their manager. All songs were produced by Dj Booman (Porch Dog Prod). 

EP - 1994 - Papa Bear Entertainment 

The wax is still really hard to find but you can see it for sale sometimes on ebay...

Recently I did an interview of Los Boogie and Dj Booman. They gave me more info about their story and explained to me how everything started for the group.   

Los Boogie : "The group started with DJ Booman, Wilmo and myself who were all students at Morgan State University. I knew BooMan from DJing and he knew that I rhymed. Wilmo, also let me hear a few bars one day after he saw me writing. We all got together and started writing but just to write, nothing serious at the time. BooMan introduced us to Mudd, his high school classmate who attended Maryland/ Eastern Shore and he became the fourth member. Wilmo would soon leave the group for personal matters but continued to write. Our name was The Wholligans! This name was from our whole crew of DJs, dancers etc... We then changed our name to Outcast but realized some months later that Dre and Big Boi had the same name. Upon visiting Mudd at UMES, we noticed that some of the dudes on campus used the term amp boogie to describe something "hyped". So we decided to call ourselves Amp Boogie."

Photos courtesy of Carlos Harris 

Grant Booman Burley : "We all lived in the same general area. Mudd and Myself lived across the street from each other and went to high school together. We later met Los via mutual friends and Los and I went to Morgan State University together. We were from Eastside of Baltimore. Wilmo who was our original 4th member was from the Westside."

Los Boogie : "I was from around Harford Road. BooMan and Mudd was from Alameda, closer to Morgan State. Wilmo was from West Baltimore, Whitelock."

Grant Booman Burley : "I can't remember the exact time when we found the group but somewhere around '92 I believe... We all got together around that time and started working on music and would battle anybody in the city that wanted smoke on the mic or the turntables. 

We had our own crew from the neighborhood that we stayed around. It was more of a collective of musicians and street dudes from the area. The producers who schooled me to the beats and the ASR and the EPS were Kool Aid and Ronnie Donn. 

'Bluntly Speaking' was done on the EPS and the other songs on the ASR-10. When I did 'Bluntly Speaking' I did not know how to use samplers that good so my man Kool Aid programmed it for me... I brough the records and had the idea how to make the beat and he sequenced it for me. By the time we did the other songs I had got with my man Ronnie Don and Nate Brunson and they schooled me on the ASR-10! I was a fanatic after that, I wanted to come to Ronnies house and make beats every damn day ! Nate finally let me use his ASR-10 at my crib and I did beats until 5 in the morning !!!

Our crew had some dope emcees like Crooked, Tall Valves, Diablo, Kareem, Chino 6'3...Papa Bear Nate was Amp Boogies Manager and my man GF funded our first project and studio time to record the EP.

I did all of the beats and scratches for all of Amp Boogies songs that were ever recorded. Los and Mud did all of the rhymes."

Los Boogie : "The connection with Nate Brunson ? ... We went to DJ Ronnie Don to help with production. He and the dude Kool Aid had an Ensonic EPS. Nate Brunson would be in the lab with us. He wanted to help push us out the public. He started to manage the group and was instrumental in securing funds through his many networks for our first EP.  He decided to formulate his own company and we released the first EP on Papa Bear Recordings."

Grant Booman Burley : "After the EP we recorded more music but never released any more official music..."

Los Boogie : "We continued to record and do shows, We even had interest from some majors. We did a few joint for some soundtracks and linked with DJ Spen to release our next EP/Album but in '97 my first child was born and I stepped back a little. We had linked with Crooked Streetz a little time before and through the connection. The MC Trauma began to perform with the group.  Amp Boogie put out a joint featuring Trauma around '98 or '99. We all joined forces again around the mid 2000's to form Point 45. We did a few joints on BooMan's Mixtape series in the mid to late 2000's. Some of those songs are still floating around. Mudd is in the ministry now but we all still write respectively. BooMan and Kool Breeze are still producing under the name Dust Addicts and I am working with my daughter helping her with her skills. I am working on dropping something in the near future which may have some features by some of the MCs that used to rock with us in the 90s. Information is forth-coming..."

Backstage at Whitten's - Feb 18, 1996 - Amp Boogie / Annexx Click / Da Kraze / Sparrow and Da Concrete Foundation - Photo courtesy of Natasha Pratt Harris

If you're not lucky enough to find that wax, you can still buy the very good "Bluntly Speaking" EP released by the excellent Six2Six Records label in 2012, which is highly recommended too!!

Mad Props to Los Boogie and Dj Booman. Thanks for your time.