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...

We Are The World...aka The Death of Rap

It is official. With a heavy heart and an angry tongue that I will try to hold I must say that Rap music is dead. It started to see the light on the day of February 1, 2009 and fought valiantly until the Lord called it home on February 12, 2009.

I suppose Nas was merely predicting the future with his Hip Hop is Dead album. Many of us were quick to jump up in defense of Hip Hop or Rap music, but little did we know that Nas owns (or at least owned at that time) a crystal ball.

On February 12, 2009, KRS-One's dreads receded back to their roots and Biggie, Tupac, Pun, even the likes of Darren Robinson also know as Buff Love from the Fat Boys and many rappers who are dead and gone began flipping in their graves.

Frankly I am mad...and I am not the only one. Websites such as rappersiknow.com and illdoctrine.com have shut down due to the depths that Rap music would go to. I am mad because Rap music once stood for something and it was quality music. Rap unfortunately was sold to Pop. Once you sell your soul to Pop, death is evident.

If you don't know what I am referring to, I'll tell you. The We Are The World remake, and to be even more specific, I'm referring to the "rap chant" during the song. I'm not even referring to the autotune, but I do have problems with it.

But anyway, allow me to explain. Hip Hop or Rap music, whatever you want to call it, is the American dream. Don't believe me? Hip Hop comes from disenfranchised people, people that didn't have a voice in the country, in the economy. They took what was considered nothing to the privileged and made it into something powerful and it had meaning. Not only did it have meaning, but it was fun as well. It was something that people at first may have acknowledged it to be a fad, but the music grew. The music had a message, it had a conscious...and it was good.

Then something happened, people realized they could make a lot of money from this genre that was still in its developmental stages compared to other genres that have been around for many, many years before. Hip Hop sold its soul to Pop and while many artists refuse to sell their soul to Pop to this day (instead, becoming Independent), the majority of what we are exposed to is some garbage Hip Hop-Pop hybrid that's not good, but yet sells.

I compare the pool of Rap artists to that of the talent pool of the NBA. There are a lot more teams, thus players and with players leaving college after one year, they haven't yet matured as players so the quality of play isn't as good as it used to be. We have artists that are good, but raw in terms of they don't know what else to say other than the usual topics. The crazy thing about this is that there are just as many great rappers now as there were 20 years ago.

Another crazy thing is that many of the core of these rappers in the chant have been around for a long, long time. Busta, LL, Snoop, even Will-i-am; they've been around for many years. They've made their money and they're able to explore different avenues of music, but I expect them to know when something is wack when they see/hear it.

Let me say before I go on is I have no problem with the cause. But the product doesn't do the cause justice. If these rappers wanted to be apart of this effort, that's great...it's wonderful. But if I may make a suggestion, just be a part of the choir. Even though you may not be singers, just try to blend in.

Another problem I have with this is the fact that this effort wasn't special in the realm of music. Twenty-five years ago you had the biggest artists in the world at that time (except Prince because that would ruin the mystique of Prince) coming together and that hasn't been done before...not like that. Nowadays, everybody appears on everybody's album. Lil Wayne just a couple of years ago was on everybody's album and he's even on Shakira's latest album...and Madonna's I believe. Also, the biggest stars (a lot of great people were there, don't get me wrong) in the world were not there...1 day after the Grammys in Los Angeles. Where were the big winners? Where's Beyonce?

I think I am disappointed because this an opportunity to do something really special, maybe not be the greatest song ever, but really really really special and it was terrible at best. I don't support terrible, lackluster music that killed off a genre. I also think that it would have been great if some of the people from the original came back for this remake. Imagine seeing Stevie Wonder and hearing him with Adam Levine of Maroon 5 since they sound the same anyway.

What a minute, doesn't Busta suppose to have an album coming out called Chemo or something like that. Isn't it supposed to treat Rap music in an effort to cure it of its cancer? Can't perform chemotherapy on something that's already dead.

I would like to thank Jay-Z, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Common, Little Brother, and many others for not taking part of this catastrophe/train wreck.

I miss Hip Hop...who's going to bring it back from the dead if that can even be achieved?