whatchu know about da (Dirty) South??

first of all, i'm going to give y'all the laink to this.

now since that is done, welcome back to a special lowercase edition of this blog.  it ain't just lowercase today though, we're going back to my roots, the south.  more specifically, the Dirty South.  that's right shawty, this right here is a Dirty South edition.

first of all, for those who don't really know what on earth i'm talking about, i'm talking about hip hop music below the mason dixon line, more specifically, tennessee, georgia, florida, louisiana, texas.  these states at some point were the gatekeepers of southern hip hop.  here we, and i in particular learned about music period.  i'm probably mostly influenced by the south.  it's where i get my southern drawl from, my slang and my overall style.

every year vh1 holds an event they like to call hip hop honors in which they honor certain acts, events, movies that have furthered the imprint of hip hop into the consciousness of our society. this year, vh1 and fab 5 freddy (probably one of the most credible voices in hip hop) have decided to have a Dirty South edition in which they intend to honor the likes of Luke, Jermaine Dupri, Organized Noise, Master P, and more.

my first thought of doing a Dirty South edition was "finally!!! it took too long to do this." but then i saw who they decided to honor, and now i think, "hol' up, dis right here might turn into freaknik" and the last thing that we need is to see freaknik on television.  for those of you who have no idea as to what freaknik is...look it up.

i do have a couple of beefs with this whole thing.  first of all, it will more than likely be filmed in new york city.  i love new york and all, but since that was hip hop's birthplace, new yorkers don't are typically purists regarding hip hop.  if it ain't from new york, then it ain't real hip hop.  and the problem with that is there was a point in which new york dropped the hip hop torch.  the west coast had it for a minute and because of a bi-coastal feud, they dropped the torch too.  all while these two coasts were holding the torch and beefing with each other, the Dirty South was stewing like gumbo.  and gumbo has to stew for a while, just so all of those flavors can mingle until it's perfect.  remember when Outkast came out and kept dropping hits that sounded like they were two years ahead of everybody else?  that type of gumbo is "slap your mama good", and that's the type of gumbo i'm talking about.

what were these flavors that i speak of? well since southern radio wasn't necessarily in the forefront of anything, we listened to everything...east coast, west coast, funk, rock, gospel, boom bap, literally everything.  and that is evident in the music.  don't think about what you hear today in 2010, because most of what we hear today is scraping the bottom of the pot. there's another pot stewing, but it ain't perfect just yet.

now, Jermaine Dupri.  personally, he is not my favorite, but i have to respect him.  he brought forth the first platinum selling femcee in Da Brat. for a minute he had his own movement. it was like he was the mayor of the ATL.  he made his own version of new jack swing in the remixes of Dru Hill's "in my bed".  So So Def was a relatively strong label back then, based on the strength of him, Da Brat, Jagged Edge, and a child named Lil Bow Wow.  we may laugh at them all now, but they were strong in the 90s

Organized Noize: if it wasn't for Organized Noize, we probably wouldn't have heard of Outkast or Goodie Mob until 5 years later. that's all that needs to be said, but keep in mind that they produced records for TLC...another ATL based group. also, two words...Dungeon Family.

Luke: Luke is arguably the most controversial figure in the Dirty South.  2 Live Crew was as bad as they wanna be and they won a court battle based on first amendment rights.  so even if Luke and 2 Live Crew isn't important as far as hip hop is concerned, they are most important when it comes to the judicial branch of the government.  Luke will always have respect in florida. 

Master P: Master P is obviously not a great lyricist, but he brought forth the hustle and drive and because of that he doesn't have to do anything ever again.  He has made so much money and was able to improve his image in the process.  Not bad for a brother from the Calliope projects.

i do think J Prince of Rap-A-Lot Records will be honored as well.  if it wasn't for the Prince, i don't know if the city of houston would have ever came together.  there may not have ever a DJ Screw and a Screwed Up Clik...Rap-A-Lot honestly never got the type of credit is has deserved.

Scarface has a beef with the Dirty South honor, because it feels disrespectful.  it's not just a region to him, it's all hip hop nonetheless.  i do agree with him, it is all hip hop.  Scarface is one of those cats who have transcended the Dirty South, he was the president of Def Jam South.  the Geto Boys has a mainstream hit before a lot of these others acts were hot, and Scarface himself is special as an emcee, he was/is feared and yet he can probably emote better than most rappers to this day.  not many of the old gatekeepers have done that.  naturally i would love to see Outkast, Goodie Mob, 8ball & MJG, the original lineups of  the Hypnotize Minds Camp, No Limit, and Cash Money...but not all will be honored ever, unfortunately.  

i see a bit where Scarface is coming from (click here for his words regarding the matter).  for a long time, the South has been disrespected, because we live a little slow, maybe talk a little slower, but we don't miss anything.  i don't know if Dirty South is even applicable anymore now that i think about it.  it was always a good way to draw attention from the rest of the world, but there are children, grandchildren, and grandparents down here...i'm not even sure if Cool Breeze understood what he meant when he coined the phrase on Goodie Mob's "dirty south" from the Soul Food album.

personally what i want people to understand about the South (and what vh1 should talk about regarding the South) is that the South is what kept hip hop going in the time of a battle.  Jay-Z has a line in a freestyle that says "see Martin, see Malcolm. see Biggie, see Pac, see success in its outcome..."  i know that in the freestyle, he's referring to himself as success in its outcome.  i would rather say that success was the south.  in a time that we were experiencing this coastal feud, the south was coming up.  i think that listening to Goodie Mob's debut Soul Food was kind of like an early eulogy, that also told us what the future was going to hold for us.  during the height of this event that could have killed a genre of music, the south was on the rise with Outkast, Goodie Mob, even No Limit Records (remember that Snopp Dogg even signed on to No Limit in 97). whether you want to call it the Dirty South of not, just simply recognize the place that the South holds in hip hop.

now i leave you with a quote from one of my favorite rapper/singers in the South, North Carolina's own Phonte from Little Brother and The Foreign Exchange.

...a lot of people blame the south for dumbing down music, or whatever but the thing is out of the south you have some of the most open-minded and some of the most versatile emcees, because in the south we grew up listening to everything.  so you know, i just really want people to focus on the music you know, and not really focus so much on what these labels and radio and tv stations be trying to feed y'all or what they think the south is supposed to be.  the south is some of the most intelligent, well spoken, and thoughtful n***a's in hip hop and the music reflects that...

mama's pearl

alrighty, welcome back ladies and gentlemen to the 8th wonder of the world.

no matter what i say in this, the bottom line will remain this one thing only, "let the man rest now"

i've been back in alabama for a week now and i've been re-acclimated with some familiar sights. but the two greatest things i've been reintroduced to has been the radio, and my grandmother's record player which happens to be in the basement of my parents house. beside the record player are a few records, some of them i haven't seen in a very long time; almost all of them happened to be michael jackson albums.

the list
music & me by michael jackson (c)1973
victory by the jacksons (c)1984
thriller by michael jackson (c)1982
bad by michael jackson (c)1987
futureshock by herbie hancock (c)1983

the herbie hancock album is mine. i left it in the record player before i left, so i was a little surprised to see it not on the turntable.

beside the record player is an older chair that may have came from my grandmother. my grandmother doesn't like to keep things for too too long, and my parents seem to be a bit of the pack rat type. but the chair beside the record player is where i am sure my mother held her own private and quiet tribute. we don't talk about it, but i know my mother and she would like to keep it the way it was quiet and private. my mother is 50, so therefore she did grow up listening to michael. when michael was ten, she was ten...so she knows the full spectrum of jackson's music in a much different way than i will ever know.

we don't really know stars like this anymore. i'm 27 and the one artist that i can think of that's about my age and that's been around for a decent amount of time is lil' wayne, and frankly, i don't wish to be tied with him in the same way my mother and people of her generation feel tied to michael jackson.

since his death, there's been a lot of speculation and a lot of people putting on there own types of tributes. BET had their award show planned for months, then this type of thing happens so they redo their entire program in two days. it was a marvel effort to change a big event over like that, but i figure that the network would want to do something better (BET...doing BETter...that should be their new motto, and they should live up to it). we've seen the music videos and heard all the hits all over again, and people are truly sad.

the most famous person in the world is gone. does anyone know what that means? i mean, i've often dreamed of being famous but not the most famous person in the world. my mind could never (and still can't) fathom that. that's a little more than people asking for autographs while you walk to the store.

i refuse to speak about any of the scandal, but if you want, read an interesting passage entitled "My Hero Ain't Molest Them Bitch Ass Kids: Phonte's teary-eyed tribute to The King" by Phonte of Little Brother

bottom line, like i said earlier...let the man rest.

the memorial was today and it was as nice as a memorial can be. many people shared their stories of michael and even though i can't stand al sharpton most of the time he did say one of the more applause gathering sayings from that day "I want his children to know. [There] wasn't nothing strange about your daddy. It was strange what your daddy had to deal with. But he dealt with it anyway."

no matter what you say, that was evident in what the daughter Paris said. Paris put the whole thing in perspective. we all have seen michael as an entertainer...as the "thriller". Paris didn't call him michael, jacko, mj, the gloved one or none of that...simply "daddy" which is what i want my kids (if i had any) to call me.

like all artists, the testament lies in our art. hopefully our art will inspire others to do great things, to believe in something that is worthwhile. michael's testament is in the music and the dance. many people have learned to dance through michael...breakdancers still rock out to the off the wall album, people still try to moonwalk. we all look at ourselves, then we look at the world and wonder how is this mess ever going to get better?

if you haven't been living under a rock for the past twelve days, you should know "man In the mirror" by now.

now let the man rest and let's conquer tomorrow.