Rap started in the Bronx and Harlem as a kind of musical manifestation of the oppression and disenfranchisement of black and Hispanic youth. It acted as a way to vent frustration and bring levity to the state of overpolicing and underproviding that plagued predominantly black neighborhoods in the 1980s. Today, Rap and Hip-Hop have become global forms of expression, a rallying cry for all who live through urban decay.
Compared to the other rap centers that were developing in the 1990s (Queens and LA/Compton scene), ‘Dirty South’ rappers deemphasized the economic ills in their music. Historically, rap was used as a way to speak truth to power—to address the economic inequality and social injustice that were present in inner cities. When rap migrated to Atlanta from Miami in the late 1990s, it brought along with it heavy drum and bass popular in Jamaica (French 2017). This influence from drum and bass made the songs sound more up-tempo and less severe. As a result, many of the rap subgenres that emerged from Atlanta are more dance-oriented. This is evident in the formation of trap music in the 2000s, a genre equally influenced by gangsta rap as by EDM. While dance music was heavily influential to the rap scene, one would be remiss to assume that that is all the Atlanta rap scene had to offer.
Behind a lot of the up-tempo beats were scathing critiques of the societal moment that a lot of black southerners found themselves in. Atlanta, being in the deep South, has a storied history with racial violence, much of which is expressed in the lyrics of rappers in the South. Natalie Graham, a professor at California State University, writes “The legacy of slavery and the Confederate threat are inescapable. In Southernplayalisticadillacmusik (1994), OutKast reminds…So So Def stars, the iconic Georgia Dome “still flies the Confederate battle flag” (OutKast 1994). OutKast acknowledges that the legacy of the Confederacy is alive and well even in the urban South. ” (Graham 2017, 43). Using OutKast as an example, Graham highlights the fact that southern rappers today have to confront the racial trauma of yesterday because of the legacy of injustice that still pervades every industry in the South, especially music. The juxtaposition of racialized trauma against the backdrop of trap, crunk, and snap rap beats is what makes the hip-hop moment in Atlanta so unique.
References
French, Kenneth. “Geography of American Rap: Rap Diffusion and Rap Centers.” GeoJournal 82, no. 2 (2017): 259–72. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44202499.
Graham, Natalie J. “Southern Rap and the Rhetoric of Region.” Phylon (1960-) 54, no. 2 (2017): 41–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/90018661.
