Crunk and place

Southern hip-hop is strongly informed by the significance of place, a sensibility that comes both from a geographic ethic that surrounds national rap production and a very Southern understanding of culture that is both regional and localized.

When I came to the South, I was surprised by the North Carolina pride – I know several people with North Carolina tattoos, for instance. Growing up I never felt rooted to Washington, DC, or to Maryland, where I lived most of my life just across the border, attending school in DC and hanging out with friends from DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Maybe we didn’t have a keen sense of place because we were at the confluence of these three places, crossing daily, never really thinking about the geographic distinctions except to claim that Virginia drivers were definitely the worst. But I also think it’s because the Northeast doesn’t see itself as a cultural region. I can’t think of anything concrete that belongs to the North, but I can think of a hell of a lot of Southern particularities. Sweet tea, grits, y’all, soul food, barbeque, Cheerwine, tobacco, blues, gospel, bluegrass, zydeco, slavery, the confederate flag, lynching, Jim Crow, and the list goes on (I never said they were all good.)

So perhaps Jason Berry’s quote, ("popular music . . . springs from an organic culture: the lyrics, rhythms, and dance patterns reflect a specific consciousness, the values of a given place and time,") has more credence in the North, where we don’t engage place in the same way as you folks down here. I guess East Coast/West Coast reppin’ rappers might disagree, so maybe it’s just missing the point about hip-hop generally, but certainly about hip-hop in the South.

Although Southern hip-hops artists definitely exist in their time and place, reflecting those values in their lyrics and actions, they are also in conversation with their history(ies) and global movements (be they musical or political). Afro-diasporic aesthetics permeate crunk, for example, from the call-and-response to the use of repetition and variation [see Lil’ Jon’s Get Low and OutKast’s ATLiens for two.] Other musical traditions are consciously engaged as well, like in OutKast’s use of the B-52s song Bombs Over Baghdad in B.O.B.

B.O.B. is a great demonstration of the ways in which hip-hop artists are making pointed and specific decisions about what cultural elements to engage with – the B-52s are from Georgia as well. David Banner thinks critically about place too, devoting an entire album to his home state of Mississipi. OutKast creates an album (re)claiming the ATL. Goodie Mobb sings about the Dirty South and Soul Food. And Lil’ Wayne sings about New Orleans on any number of tracks, Tie My Hands being one of the most moving.

So Southern hip hop artists aren’t just being impacted unknowingly by their place(s), they are seriously considering it – it’s values, history, food, crime, culture, music, and it’s possibilities for change. Perhaps, in the process, they are even changing it themselves.