Mello Music Group seems to just keep releasing heat. There’s nothing else to say, really. Having slept on them for far too long, it’s only fitting that I’m just now hearing about Sean Born, the Maryland MC with rhymes that take you back to the ’90s (think a more clean-cut — just barely— Roc Marciano. Which is really another way of say I really hope this hip-hop Renaissance continues) with his raw and unfiltered lyrics depicting a life of struggle on the streets from someone who has really (cough … Mr. Ross … cough) experienced it first hand (“If  you get your hood news from BET, you don’t know how it is”).

Born’s first album with Mello Music Group, Behind The Scale, dropped in February and it’s a crime that I haven’t mentioned this trap/crime-inspired album reminiscent of classics like Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx … and Mobb Deep’s The Infamous (especially “Go Hard”). The first video from Behind The Scale, for the candidly soulful single “Lights On,” has just hit the net and serves as a solid introduction to a man who shouldn’t need one.

Check out the video, or better yet, the entire album, and let us know what you think.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u3FM77DzMo&w=560&h=315]