Gus Voorhees – The Man of Kent and Step Back
Oust – Alas, Posterity
Paperhaus – Silent Speaking
Big Sky Conspiracy – Tornado
Supper Club – Rondamatic
Abu Jibran – Time To Save Your Soul
Kokayi – Port of Lost Angels
K-Murdock – Birdfeather
Dirdy Redzz – Red Line doors closing
The Harry Bells – Man Smart, Woman Smarter
The Mean Season – Kurtz
huSEQ – Super Extoller
Scenic MentaL Detours – Falling Leaf
Atoka Chase – Burn the Light (or Of Matriarchs and Alcohol)
Howard University Jazz Ensemble – Is There Anything Still There
Jonathan Matis – Akeboki
Deleted Scenes – The Days of Adderall
Kino Musica – Yèkèrmo Sèw
Frau Eva – Morrissey Smiling
Blankus Larry – Sam

Fidelity Jones – Destructor
Ben Dransfield – Here Now
Teen Idles – Adventure
Brian Settles & Central Union – Bison
Rod Hamilton – Aqua 1
SIR E.U – WMATA (t3nnisball)
Trifilio Tango Trio – La Sabionda
Abu Jibran – Bowtie
Dupont Brass – The Way
Outputmessage – Lungs
Gordon Withers – Hurry Up And Wait
BOOMscat – RUNNINGONE
Constant Alarm – Iowa
Low End String Quartet – Grinder
Denis Malloy & Stanley “Z” Ng – Surprise Five
Beauty Pill – Idiot Heart
J. Reid – Smoking a j at the end of the Anthropocene
Mission South – Peaches
Joy Buttons – Other
Kokayi – The MFN Yay

But the emcee’s discography got a boost this week with the release of the song “Fall In Love,” which announces its presence with a funky flute lick, segues into a sassy R&B vibe and features a tasteful bass breakdown at the end. Also in the mix: the DMV’s Ciscero. (Jazz/hip-hop group Badbadnotgood and producer Kaytranada reportedly handled the beat.) The track, which got a “Hottest Record In the World” designation Thursday from BBC1’s Annie Mac, also has at least one fan among from D.C.’s hip-hop luminaries:

Yo this @GoldLink Fall in Love is fuego ?. Good work champion ✊?hottest record on @AnnieMac #bbc1 #madeindc #aCreativeDC #hechoendc

— kokayi (@kokayi) August 26, 2016

Atoka Chase – My Father
Boat Burning – RM1
Caz and the Day Laborers – Now That I’m Dancing
Mud Rey – Tutelo
Aztec Sun – Redline (Commuter Funk)
Zoe Ravenwood – Time Again
Kokayi – SEASIDE:Monterey County
Ben Williams – Moonlight In Vermont
Matt Chaconas – Cosby (Un Mensonge)
Unring the Bell – Mission to Hell, People
Bill Emerson & Sweet Dixie – Yard Sale
aerialist – nebulon
Flash Frequency – Escape Theory
Wes Swing – In a Station of the Metro
Gods’Illa – Feel (Feat. DuaneFace)
Tom Espinola – Milano Nights
Dan Harris – Cowboy Song
Maelstrom Fiddlers – Itzikel
Asheru – Trapped (feat. O.U.O.)
QuinTango – To Ostatnia Niedziela

So Spirited – Fevers
The Red Fetish – As Green As Grows the Pasture
Dove Lady – The Implication
Seba Yuri – Ethereality
maxine – another plane
Ben Williams – Things Don’t Exist
Caz and the Day Laborers – I Give Dub
Wicked Olde – Jenny Picking Cockles
Wildhoney – FSA II
Borracho – King’s Disease
Little Hunts – Nocturne (Part 2)
Dupont Brass – The Way
The Sea Life – Pray For Snow
Diggs Duke – The Pinnacle Of Class & Taste
Damu the Fudgemunk & Raw Poetic – Hole Up (Instrumental)
Kokayi – The MFN Yay
Will Copps – Rush
Future Islands – Long Flight
Buildings – Upward Through Ever-Expanding Light
Thievery Corporation – Transcendence

Sounds like these capture a “changing of the guard” in Washington, says D.C. producer Kokayi — and he stitches them together with other locally sourced audio in a new project called The Sounds of the City.

In March, organizers of the annual Funk Parade put out a call for recordings captured in the District. “What sounds make you think of D.C.?” asked parade co-founder Justin Rood. “What is the song this city makes?” Recordings from the public, organizers said, would be turned over to Kokayi to sample, splice and loop into a “song for D.C.”

But Kokayi got more sounds than he expected — more than 30, all told.

“I got so much great stuff that I was like, ‘Ooh, I could do way more songs than just one,'” the artist says. So he decided to make four tracks — one for each city quadrant.

The result is a four-part audio soundscape that tells a story about urban change and the sharp contrasts that define many Washington neighborhoods.

Track No. 4, “Dreams Deterred,” portrays two sides of life in the neighborhood Kokayi calls home. “The recent crimes at Deanwood Metro starkly contrast the peace of nature that exists in Deanwood,” he says. To get at both sides, he combined a trap beat with sounds of Deanwood nature and rhythms heard at the Malcolm X Park drum circle.

The project’s third track, “Gentry & the Ebon Road,” sounds scattered and confused. That’s on purpose, Kokayi points out.

“The song begins with the sound from the corner of 7th and U and slowly distorts as a representation of the reconstruction and gentrification of U Street,” he says. He builds the track using sounds of go-go beats, a downtown D.C. violin performance, a walk through Shaw and a house flip in progress.

Kokayi dedicates “SoawesomE” to Southeast. Constructed from audio of a helicopter, birds and a band practice, the track aims to “illustrate how Southeast has always received negative media coverage without people actually knowing the tony estates of Hillcrest,” he says. Meanwhile, Southwest tune “SolidGold Waterfront” uses recordings of demolition, a motorcycle and a city bus to depict development in the city’s smallest quadrant.

The project took two and a half weeks to complete, Kokayi says. His main goal? The element of surprise. “I wanted to come up with different rhythms that wouldn’t be expected,” he says.

He hopes his work inspires more locals to create their own D.C. soundscapes.

“[Residents] should spend some time actually going out and taping their neighborhoods,” Kokayi says, “so you can hear some of the wild stuff that happens.”

Listen to “Sounds of the City,” also called “Hecho in D.C.,” below. The Funk Parade takes place May 7 in the U Street neighborhood.

Photo by Flickr user Ryan McKnight used under a Creative Commons license.