NPR Music - How hip-hop reached global domination

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Over half a century, hip-hop has grown into a globally dominant musical and cultural force while remaining stubbornly, vitally local.When DJ Kool Herc spun records at a small party in the Bronx in August of 1973, no one would have predicted his unique style would give birth to the most influential and dominant music in the world: hip-hop. In this special episode, NPR Music editors Daoud Tyler-Ameen and Sheldon Pearce are joined by contributor Christina Lee to look at how and why the music has managed to remain a local phenomenon, even as it's taken hold of the world.Note: This episode original ran in Aug. 2023 for our special coverage of the 50th anniversary of hip-hop.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey, everybody, just a quick note that this episode originally ran in August of 2023 as part of our special coverage of the 50th anniversary of hip hop. And a heads up, this episode also contains explicit language. Here's a little story that must be told. On a summer night in 1973, a couple of teenagers threw a party. And this party kind of changes the course of music. But not just music. Culture, media, fashion. American history.

So picture the scene. You're a kid in New York City in the Bronx. There's a big 18-story apartment building on Sedgwick Avenue. And the party's happening in this little common room. You paid something like 50 cents to get in. You probably know most of the kids there. The host of the party is this girl, Cindy Campbell, who organized it just to raise money

so she could buy some new school clothes. But the music. The music at this party is being spun by Cindy's older brother, Clive Campbell. Clive is 18. He's better known as DJ Cool Herk. And soon, he's going to be much better known as one of the founders of hip-hop.

That was August 11, 1973. And half a century later, hip-hop is, obviously, a global concern. You're listening to a music podcast right now, so you've probably heard plenty of fanfare about the anniversary happening this summer. Hip-hop is 50. There are many ways of celebrating that, so what you're about to hear will not attempt to be complete or definitive. Instead, we're going to try to stay as close to the ground as we can.

Because here's the thing about hip-hop. Even as it gets bigger and bigger and more and more financially successful, it is constantly reinventing itself on a local level in small communities of mostly young people who mostly know each other. I'm Daoud Tyler Amin. NPR Music, and what I want to do today is spend a little time considering that question, how hip hop became one of the biggest cultural forces in the world while staying so local, how it's kept birthing new origin stories in new cities and where it might be going in the next 50 years.

To do that, I'm joined by two incredible colleagues. With me in Washington, D.C. is Sheldon Pierce, NPR Music's hip-hop and R&B editor. Hey, Sheldon. Hello. And from Atlanta, the center of it all these days is. is Christina Lee, journalist, critic, and frequent NPR music contributor. Hi there. Hi.

So, let's talk a little more about origin stories. That story about Cool Herk is one that, you know, people mostly know, but there's a couple of bullet points worth highlighting. It wasn't just a party with a DJ. You know, we had those already. Herc had used a little DIY ingenuity to soup up his family sound system. It was a little louder than people were used to. He had this merry-go-round technique of using two-com.

copies of a record on two turntables so that he could extend the breaks, the good parts. And yet a microphone to hype the crowd up. All of which are these building blocks of the thing that would come to be known as hip hop over the next couple of years. And all of which are observed and copied and developed and improved upon as this culture grows throughout New York and eventually beyond it. Now, Christina, for a lot of this century, Atlanta has been the center of the culture. And it has a story like this too, where a lot just sort of starts to come into focus. So tell me about what had been brewing in Atlanta before about 1995 and what happens after that. So around 1995, by then Atlanta in itself is starting to gain a bit of a music presence in itself, right?

You have Babyface and L.A. Reed looking to Atlanta as means to start their own record label, epic. Atlanta was initially founded on like funk and soul. You had Bunny Jackson Ransom, who was the wife of Mayor Maynard Jackson. She was a manager for Funk and Soul acts like Brick. And Brick is especially significant for Atlanta hip hop history because one of its members, Jimmy Brown, would then become the father of Sleepy Brown. Sleepy Brown being such a crucial voice to the Dungeon Family Collective that birthed out. ass goody mob and several generations of hip-hop to come thereafter. So that's what's brewing around 1995, right? Then you get to 1995 at Madison Square Garden of all places. The tensions are high. This is the 1995 Source Awards. So it's already well established that hip hop is a bicultural fair. Over on one side, you have bad boy, you have puff daddy over here. And then over on the West Coast, you had death row representing. You had ship night. you at Tupac, you had Snoop Dog.

There is so much yelling. Like, the footage of this stuff is really great. There's so much yelling. There's so much tension. There's still so much animosity that you can, like, smell in the air. And then in the midst of all this, Alcast wins best new rap group. And the winter is in, ladies, help me out. And when they take the stage, big boys initially like, hey, you know, what's up New York?

Big boy is the polite house guest. He's like, we acknowledge that we're in your home. Thank you so much for having us. That it up. Goody mob in the house, you know what to say? What's up in New York? You know what I'm saying? Because we from down south.

You know what I'm saying? There's New York up in this. You know what I'm saying? Are y'all laying here? You know what I'm saying? This is our city. We just want to say, you know what's up? To all the original emcees out there,

people like that who got their own stuff. So what's up, Dre? But Andre 3,000, my fellow Gemini, when he takes the mite chewing gum, I think, he can't take it. He can't hide, like, the disappointment in his face. You know, he just sees that what's happening in their room is a lack of respect. I'm tired of folks, you know what I'm saying?

Close-minded folks, you know what I'm saying? It's like we got a demo tape and I don't know anybody want to hear, but it's like this the South got something to say. That's all I got to say. That's when he says would become like a calling card, that a charge that Atlanta would initially take on first. That's when he would say the South got something to say. Yeah.

Yeah, Christina, it really feels like Outcast is the great deline. for Atlanta rap. That moment is a broader beacon for the South, but also specifically it feels like this clear signal that Outcast is going to be an important voice, not just for Atlanta, but for the entire region. As you mentioned, like a lot of the Atlanta artists who came before Outcast were significantly influenced by the Miami-Base movement. You think of MC Shy D, who was also African-Arabians who was also African-Aid.

and Mbada's cousin, relocating to Atlanta but getting a deal with two life crews, Uncle Luke at Luke Records and cutting two records for them in the 90s. You think about Rahim the Dream and DJ Toompe being very involved in that Miami scene as well. And we know Toompe would later become a serious player in the trap movement of Atlanta. But Outcast comes and just blows this whole thing up and says, we have our own voice, we have our own sound, we are doing things our way now, and from that moment on, you have this flood of artists coming through and after the turn of the millennium. And they completely just changed the sound of rap in the wake of that. Is it easy, I know this is sort of a big question, but can you put into words what felt so

different about the hip hop that was coming out of Atlanta and the South in general compared to what was happening in New York and L.A. at the time. Well, first, it bears to mention that Al-Qas was certainly not the first hip-hop act to come out of Atlanta. And you see glimpses of that. Like, one of the first rap stars that Atlanta would actually see was actually Kiloa Ali. And he was a bass artist, right? So he is proof of how the Miami sound is first migrating. And so he's a testament to how Southern rap doesn't start with Atlanta. He's probably not going to end in Atlanta, right? But what Alcass was doing was directly picking up

from the same fuck and soul lineage that, you know, Sleepy Brown's family had sort of engaged in. So they took the whole, like, music culture that came with two dope boys in the catalog. I think it's just such a perfect example of how they would take what was already, like, deep in their roots and just play off of that.

I'm sick of these wack-ass rappers like I'm tired. But they're chokers, who them boys that be having a crank every occasion? This side niggas's dust and that side niggas' lacin. But in the middle of each, they come, we just trumped wrong. Asking where we come from, South Coast Slum. Just two dope boys in a Cadillade. But they took what was truly local to them, whether that's in terms of music legacy or whether that's in terms across streets,

and made sure that folks felt like they were really in Southwest Atlanta. I think that's, like, key difference there. Yeah, there's this, there are a lot of movies. and shakers in that moment when before Outcast take the stage Jermaine Dupree is sort of moving around. He's got a guy who will

become his A&R, little John who has his own thing going on connected to Memphis Crunk. You have a DJ Chris Lovolava who is going to become ludicrous in the wake of this moment. A lot of players are sort of in and around the local scene

sort of trying to get in where they fit in and then here you have this rally and cry. The South has something to say, a national moment that it's like, okay, it's our time now. And these artists sort of we see in the next few years, not even single file. They're like moving over top of each other trying to get to the front of the back. How are they actually repping for Atlanta? Because they're outside of this, you know, I mean, conflict that's happening between the coasts. But they clearly. you know, have something to say for themselves. So what is what is that message? How does it

manifest in the music? I think to some degree, as much as Atlanta is a connector city, when I think of Atlanta rap and the stories that are being told, I have to divide it amongst like different neighborhoods and different police zones, right? So like when Alcass are coming up, this is coming from two kids who went to high school together over an East Point. And then you start to see that from one police zone to another, from zone four to zone six, people are gathering together in their neighborhoods because they see Alcath and the like has sort of paved the way. They've seen that like this avenue is available to them and they sort of answer to that charge. So I think for me, like the scene that best epitomizes that is everything that's come out of bankhead.

I'm in a phone. I've got to see my doctor. Scott is calling me. It's got to be me. That dates back for when Kilo Ali Lee was a native there, all the way from the snap movement, you know, coming out of places like Pool Palace and Tojamb Studios, all the way to win trap music becomes something of a turf war between Ti and Shardi Lo, when literally they're going back and forth on MTV and the like debating who's got bigger claims on Bowen homes and that being the housing project that was eventually raised. And so what's really interesting is that what you're getting is like this super hyperlocal conversation about like what all these different dimensions of Atlanta are. And that just feels like super, super important because Atlanta is, you know, as my friend Jewel Ricker wrote for y'all, it's like a city of contradictions. It's not only a capital for hip-hop. It's also a capital of income inequality. And so you get to see these sort of extremes play out where these folks are being raised out of housing projects. but they're going to go to Lennox Mall later.

And they're going to sort of reckon with how they too can become like a symbol of black excellence going forward. Yeah. Yeah, when I think about the thing that is distinguishing Atlanta from New York and from L.A. in this moment, it's that the scene has its own sort of blue collar sensibility. And this goes on even into the trap movement of the early 2000s. there is a slower sort of hand, even in the drug culture. There's this small time hand-to-hand, nine-to-five-ishness to a lot of the music that is like the New York guys, they're gangsters. Biggie is, he's calling himself the black, Frank White, mimicking the movie, the King of New York.

Of course, Jay-Z, reasonable doubt would come along and have its own sort of mafios. style and a lot of that stuff was about being like kingpin larger than like figures you think about outcast you think about goody mob you think about the stuff that comes in its wake ti jizi a lot of that stuff is specifically about getting in how you get in where you fitting in like moving at a slower pace trying to get by and specifically thinking about where you fit in your community and how to make it to the next day. There is, of course, this aspirational thing

that comes out of that, striving to be a baller on the next level. But to me, there was always this sort of like, the TI is making this thing feel unglamorous in the early going. When he's starting trap music, he's like, man, there are moments on that record where there's literally a song called Doing My Job.

Where he's like, I'm just here's the slain down But grow with crack cocaine Him a seven to rogue game Hexas if I agro, whatever get the domain Where he's like, listen I'm just here same as you Trying to make this thing happen And that is that is key to the ethos

Of these rappers as they are trying I think you hear it in them Trying to make their claim To be on the level of these other rappers There these other scenes are looking down on them They're like hey Just because we're trying to get in where we fit in doesn't mean our voices don't matter the same way.

Yeah. Oh my God. You like nailed it because yesterday, like the one song that I wanted to hear more than anything as July turned into August was I need a vacation by Young D.C. I needed to hear that the day's been so long and I'm so tired. But that's exactly it though. What's really interesting about this conversation was that we're talking about trap as if it was an Atlanta-born thing.

Like, but if you look. back on conversations from 2005 as people were trying to figure out, hey, what is the future of Southern rap going to be? Now that Alcass is a mainstream phenomenon, it was interesting was that, like, you get this cocaine rap conversation where Clips gets lipped in with Rick Ross. And then GZ, as Ronnie Serig in the book, Third Coast acknowledges, it's like, okay, well, maybe, maybe GZ is the patron saint of all this. That's just because he had T-shirts banned from schools with its drug connotations. So maybe we'll give him that.

But otherwise, like, who's to tell all these people apart? It's so interesting because that was in 2005. And here we are in 2023 talking about how, like, Atlanta really took something that was already sort of, like, percolating in hip-hop and, like, really made it theirs. Christina, you mentioned Jewel Wickers piece on NPR.org about Atlanta hip-hop. And I don't want to let it go on said. But Sheldon, you've been overseeing a really wonderful series of essays for the NPR website called All Rap is Local. You wrote a couple of them yourself.

You chose 14 scenes around the U.S. Some of the usual suspects, New York and L.A. are in there. And then some of these dark horses, things that, you know, you don't automatically think of them in your top five, but they produce these major stars and had these crazy breakthrough moments. Places like St. Louis. Places like Detroit. You know, Christina, you mentioned Virginia Beach. you know, the clips, all the rest of that. So I'm curious about the value, the sort of argument for looking at these things on a local level and understanding some of the details of where this

stuff comes from. So since we're talking about that, Sheldon, since you put this series together, why do it this way? Yeah, to me, it is to really connect the people at the grassroots level of this thing to the commodity that it has become in 2023. People think of it as this mass marketed phenomenon because that's what it's become. It's sort of entered every crevice of our culture and cultures beyond. If you look at K-pop,

If you look at Arbano music, you look at I'm trying to pull up. Oh, that'll be my first thing. I'll be nowhere's a friend. If you look at Urbano music, you look at scenes in London and Johannesburg, it's always important to me to remember that individual communities of people at the city level were creating this thing. just among themselves as a way to represent the places that they lived and the lives that they were experiencing in those places.

I think in doing that by looking at these scenes individually, you start to see something take hold across the country and all these sort of different moments feeding on each other build into this national phenomenon, build into the thing that we know and love. And it reminds us that community is the foundation of all of this. It isn't a corporate enterprise. It's about humans experiencing something unique with the people that they know and love. I think that's such, such an important point because a lot of times I think the music, and especially with hip hop, the way that I engage with it most is thinking about it as means of, like, its own community listening. And I think that's especially important because the music oftentimes, times opens up doors for conversations that otherwise get left out of the mainstream.

Alcass and Dungeon Family in general, Goody Mob and all that, are like perfect examples of this because they're coming up as Atlanta is getting ready to host the 1996 Olympics. And what's happening as a result is that as they're getting ready to host the 1996 Olympics, people are being displaced from their neighborhoods. Homeless people are being thrown into jail. And so the very Atlantins that the city is trying to show off as a world-class city are being put in the back burner. And so, like, a lot of those formative records like Goody Mob's Soul Food and it being really, really crucial because, like, otherwise, those very native Atlantans would not have had a voice. One, the two, the three, the four, them dirty red dogs done hit the dough, and they got everybody on their hands and knee.

And they ain't going to leave until they find them kids. Yeah, dirty Bill Clinton fronted me some weight. Told me to keep two. Bring him back eight. And I only brought him five and stuck his ass for three. Do you think that clamped the sickest goons on me? Yeah, and to think about trap along those same lines. Like this music, which people weirdly thought was trying to glamorize a drug dealer culture in Atlanta,

was more about demonstrating what was happening in these hoods, in these projects, what these rappers themselves were experiencing, what they were seeing happening around them, and also trying to use that music as a way to manifest a future for themselves and their families to escape from this thing. So there are a lot of layers to this music functioning as this cultural force really among just the people

who are living on these scenes and trying to make their way through them. See, never did I think when I got grown that some pee-wee sax have been untook this town. See, life's a bitch, then you figure I, Why, you really got dropped in the dirty side. So let's move around the map a little bit. Sheldon, you wrote about St. Louis.

You wrote about the DMV where we're at right now. And it's sort of sister city, Virginia Beach. And Miami, are there any of these kind of breakthrough moments that jump to mind when thinking about those cities? Yeah, Virginia Beach is obviously close to my heart. And it is sort of the epitome. Wait, are you from there? My grandparents, my mom and my aunt were raised there. I spent a good portion of my life down there.

Oh, I'm from Maryland. That's so funny. My grandfather lives in Norfolk now. But that scene to me epitomizes like a group of friends coming together, looking around at the place they live and being like, we've got to change what we see around us. And in so doing, ending up changing like the entire landscape of popular. music. It's like... We should say who those friends are. Timbalin, Missy Elliott. I'm driving to the beach. Top down, loud sound, see my piece. Give them pounds now, look,

who it be. It be me, me, me and Timothy. Look like about the rain. What a shame. I've got the armor or to shine up the same. Old Missy try to maintain. I can't stay in the rain. The Thornton brothers of Clips, Farrell Williams and Chad Hugo, the duo, known as the Neptunes. These people, they are all sort of orbiting each other in this small naval community. At one point, the Neptunes,

Timbalin and his friend Magoo, who they would end up becoming their own partnership, they are literally in a group called Surrounded by Idiots. So that gives you a sense of how they are thinking about their local community. community and the music that they are trying to make to escape it. But it's so interesting because if you know anything about the Virginia Beach area, it is sort of this sleepy town, non-distinct. It is on the northernmost edge of the south. So it's slow going. There's not a lot happening

there. And there's not anything particularly notable about it from a cultural standpoint. But then you have this small group of weirdos who are sort of breaking through that. They're like, we don't necessarily represent what is around us. We are still of this place, right? Everything that we see around us has filtered into our understanding of the world, but it's because of that that we are trying to break those norms. And you get just some of the weirdest rap music you will ever hear as a result of that in the late 90s, early 2000s.

But it's like, quickly, those same. sounds start to migrate over from R&B to pop music. Yeah, no. You end up with the Neptune's credit on a Britney Spears album. I remember really clearly hearing I'm a slave for you and not even understanding like what it was. I remember people around me being like, this is like a Britney Spears song without a melody. What's going on here? It is truly bizarre.

It is such an outlier. only in her catalog, but in the pop landscape of that moment. But that is all a part of this little movement of friends being able to push upward and outward from their scene and make a statement on a national scale. Surrounded by idiots is such a fun footnote. You think of so much of hip-hop culture and sort of the attitude around it as like reping your set. I like the idea of just feeling, I don't like everything about where I grew up.

So here's a bigger question. Is hip hop special in this sense? Because all music is from somewhere, all art is from somewhere, but is there something about how this music and this culture sort of carries its local fingerprints with it as it gets bigger that's different from other kinds of music? Yeah, we talk about surrounded by idiots being sort of this outlier in the rep your set culture.

But I think there is a sort of. sense of where you're from being crucial not only to the way rappers see themselves, but the way they see their communities and the way that they build their communities. Hip-hop culture from its beginning, by its nature, is a competitive sport. You think about breakdancing. You think about DJ battles. You think about ciphers. You think about graffiti bombing.

It's a territorial thing. and while I think sometimes that mentality has gotten some rappers into trouble, you look over the course of the history, it is also just as much bonded them. They have found pride in where they live and who they know. And in so doing sort of embodied the flavor of the places that they come from. They try to manifest that in a way that is tangible for listeners. How else better to separate yourself from the scene that you're saying you're better than? than to fully embody your own style and sound.

And so as a result of that, you get these various waves of, like, aesthetic growth in these various places. And that's why I think it's important to look at these scenes locally because it is that competition that fosters the growth of the thing to a national and a global scale. Scenes being like, no, it's us. No, it's us. That Pastor Troy has a song called No More Play in GA. where he's thinking about how his scene is coming up in comparison to another scene. Right. And so along those lines, we're seeing right, have now thinking I'm very white.

In the night, pack them tight, call the fight, T.K.O. We got more. You ain't know. You're wrong. And so along those lines constantly, we're seeing pushback, turf wars, territorial mentality, push this thing. over the finish line and get it to where it is now. Yeah, I think especially in Atlanta, the music in itself has served as sort of its own history.

So in ways that, like, a lot of rap conversations had centered around, like Zone 4 and Zoh 6, Bankhead and East Side, respectively, like the days of Gucci, Maine, 21 Savage, so on, and so forth. I think one of the most interesting conversations that Atlanta rap had seen was when Nicos came onto the scene. Fendi Prada Louis Bellet, I don't need a stylist. I'm taking all my goon to carry. Then we hit the islands.

Order up by hundred ones I throw it all at filist. Slug in Japan, so we kick it like a ride it. For those who are in the DMV right now, going to Lawrenceville, Georgia, where Migos is from, is like driving from D.C. to maybe like Frederick or like Mount St. Mary. It feels like so removed from like what's considered like the epicenter of Atlanta. It's considered like outside 285 or outside the perimeter. And so like when, like, when Migos are first coming out and saying like,

Like, we're from the north. People are like, what? We haven't heard. Like, nobody's saying North Side. What are you talking about? But at the same time, they are there for rewriting our own history and understanding of Atlanta, which is to say, with all its histories of white flight and reverse migration and this and that, what Nigo's help us understand was like, Gwinnett is not such a sleepy suburb after all.

There might actually be some shit going down. And it's important for us to know that. So, yeah, it's important to look at it from a local perspective, especially for me, I think, because it's updating my understanding of this city in which I live in real time. Yeah. There is this other thing that is going on where it's like, the city that you end up reppping isn't always your city. DJ Premier is a Texas boy.

Right. Who ends up sort of being a foundational pillar of New York City rap. Yeah. And then Tupac is a Baltimore kid who ends up. in the Bay Area in Marin City, messing around with Digital Underground, and becomes sort of a staple of West Coast culture as the face of death row. So it's interesting how sort of scenes can assimilate characters. Characters can come to embody places that they aren't necessarily from, but they are a part of or they represent. And I think that speaks to the way that communities actually function, the way that people migrate from one place to a

another and the way that cultures carry. We talked about the way Miami-Base influenced Atlanta rap. But it's like there's all kinds of those little tenuous connections that end up creating a greater lattice work that brings this thing altogether. I just wonder if there's something to be said for how a lot of these hip-hop capitals are also major connector cities. I mean, Atlanta boasts the busiest airport. And so much of what you said, Sheldon, also informs Atlanta rap history. Like, I think Zaytovin is probably my favorite example. Somebody from the Bay Area moves over to East Atlanta and becomes like the de facto producer for Gucci-Mane.

Like, how does his particular sound become the soundtrack for Zone 6? Like, that's Metro Booming. Another great example. Because when you talk about St. Louis, Metro Boomer is originally from St. Louis. He looks to Nelly as like a hometown hero. But in order to forge the very connections he needs to make to where he eventually produces is a Spider-Man soundtrack, he has to come to Atlanta. He has to go to the HBCUs.

DJ Drama. DJ Drama originally from Philadelphia came to the HBCUs boasting Neo Soul mixtapes before Gangsta Girls. Like, that's insane. But again, that sort of speaks to Atlanta as a connector city. What about some of the cities that are maybe less thought of as connectors? I mean, we're talking in all of this about fairly major cities, but like Detroit's a little bit, off the beaten path as far as that goes, and yet it gave us the biggest selling rapper of the

21st century. Sheldon, you chose to include Boston as one of the cities in the series, a city that I think a lot of people don't necessarily think of as a hip-hop city, but that has this really important role as a sort of satellite for New York, kind of feeding it information and guiding and incubating talent. What role does the development of media play in all of the world? of that because one thing that I've been learning reading all of these stories is that the era of terrestrial radio, the era of MTV, and now the era of the internet, of SoundCloud, of streaming

services, et cetera, all give us different avenues through which these local sounds are discovered and they all sort of change the calculus of how much people connect what they are hearing and ingesting through that medium back to the place that it came from. Yeah, in the early days, you talk about these outlier cities, thinking specifically about, like, St. Louis, Seattle. It's almost like if you aren't connected to this thing by radio or by someone who is from there, then you aren't connected to it until 10 years of development have happened. Terrestrial radio is so crucial to the way that these things move in the early stages. And we really start to see the sprawl of rap with the development of the internet. As artists start to move in that direction, it gives them the freedom to post their stuff without any sort of record label infrastructure.

Because one of the things that worked to Atlanta's favor, it had a little bit of record label infrastructure already in place thinking about Babyface and L.A. Reed. Yeah. Some of these other places, they don't have that infrastructure. They don't have the infrastructure of New York in L.A. All these labels, these sort of entertainment hubs existing already. Even Miami, to a certain extent, has that. So they are sort of odd cities out in this discussion for a lot of its history, just trying to get in where they fit in. The Internet becomes the great equalizer for a little period, even in Atlanta, when you think about.

an artist like TI who was dropped from his label and then used mixtape culture as a means to build his buzz back up enough to get signed again. Yeah. And it's like as the internet sort of became the home of mixtapes, it's like you start to see artists from very strange places pop up. You see like a Freddie Gibbs in Gary, Indiana. Yeah.

He can make it to a major label. And that just continues through our, streaming model, which then like breaks the dam down and turns rap into the global commodity that we know. Rocks in the nigger rinse. Forgei-a-nobino's on a bet too much. Folage to a nigga slip too much. Try to hit another nigga bitch, too much. I got way too many enemy got to be too d'n.

Nigger with the muggy damage and never can fool up. Backstage at the show these holes going to choose up. A.D.L. to the shot. These hoes get fluted. Michael Jax and Michael Thice. A-Nobah got a beat. Does it make me see me a little bit of me. Then the head was undefeated. Once I hit another city, then the number get it lead.

Does it make you sad at all? It does make me a little, you know, it's hard not to, as a long-time rap fan, look at some of this stuff as like a proud dad. And be like, wow, look how far it's come. Because I remember what it was like, even in the mid-2000s. Yeah. How put off some people were by the. the culture, by the music, by the people making it. So to see those same characters like front and center in the music conversation,

I mean, there's still something valuable about that. Do I wish that we weren't funneling our entire music infrastructure through rap caviar? Yes, I do wish that. But at the same time, I say this all the time. Every era of rap has produced great artists. thinking outside the box, making just the most incredible thing they can imagine that also represents the people and the places that they're from. Yeah. It's making me think now about all of these moments that my youth is sort of littered with where these people would kind of break through and some of them would just kind of go Hollywood right away where they were sort of like really just sort of part of this bigger entertainment complex. And then there were other people who really seemed to make an effort to remind people where they were from and just make it a giant part of their branding.

So, like, Nelly breaking out with country grammar and shooting that video under the gateway arch is just like, there is no mistaking where that fool comes from. You know, still tipping, you know, like blowing up BET uncut. And, you know, and the camera just lingering on street signs. And people like, you know, people all over the country getting to be like, this is what. what y'all are doing in Houston? Oh my God. Right. I mean, I wonder, I wonder what's, what's gonna come of that?

Because this is the other thing. It's hard to think now, given the media world that we live in and the sort of streaming infrastructure that's become, you know, just sort of like, like it or not, the way that people come to experience a lot of music. There have been moments in the past where it feels like everything has changed at once in terms of everything becoming a little bit of. bit less local. And we talked about some of these ad vents with just like different kinds of broadcast technology and all of the rest of that. But do you see people in this history fighting

back against that? Or is there anybody that comes to mind that sort of like has sort of pushed back either using a big platform to do it or just sort of like, you know, sneaking off into these like sort of side channels outside of the view of like sound scan and billboard and all of the rest of that and trying to serve or represent their own local scene in some way. I think currency is like the prime example of this. White carpet in my scarface house. No undergone this on my scarface spouse. My be the twisting refa and delivering that door to the front door like a piece of carrying

her own way financially she don't need me. She's just in love with a real. Here is a guy He's in My underclosed location My gross base is reading up On Ben and V-12 Here is a guy

He exists Within his scenes infrastructure In two different phases He's signed to Masterpiece No Limit He's then released and signed To Birdman's

Cash Money Records Both of these situations He's like The way that this goes It's not working for me He tried it out a little bit, like you can hear him sort of messing around with the commercial radio single, the idea of it in some of his earlier stuff, but it's just not suiting him. And so he's like, no, there's no disrespect to Wayne, no disrespect to Master P, but I've got to go off and do my own thing. And he does.

He creates his own little indie empire, brings some of his like-minded friends along with him. and just turns the independent mixtape and then, like, retail release into a threshold for him to do the exact kind of stuff that he always wanted to do, which is this sort of leisurely laid back high out of your mind, but cruising in the craziest convertible type vibe that you can find. and he's doing it over and over again because that's what he wants to do. Yeah. But he's reaching a specific audience with that sound despite major label infrastructure pushing back against him. And he created a really like a 20-year career doing just that.

And he's still going strong now. And it's so ironic, too, that the very labels that currency ended up not finding to be a good fit. You said no limit and you said cash money, right, Sheldon? Yeah. So, like, those very labels not too long ago were very crucial launching pads for the Southern Rav genre that we came to know today, right? Because if it wasn't for what started as indie successes, maybe we wouldn't then have the major label infrastructure that currency was literally pushing back against.

The irony is beautiful. Right. That's the funniest thing about this. It's like no limit in cash money. They start as small independent offices on their own. They get absorbed into the big sort of mainstream music apparatus. And while both those labels put out great music on that scale, there has also been a lot of talk of bad business happening throughout that process.

And it's like here you have currency. He is able to subvert that thing while also sort of staying true to the same New Orleans that produced it. Christina, you've been. you've been in these streets for a minute covering hip hop. Who aren't we hearing about? Are there cities out there that you've just had your eye on for years where there's just like there's a scene that you know is so strong

and it just hasn't had its national breakthrough moment yet? I was really happy to see Boston included in the hair rap coverage. I was so excited to see that DART Adam specifically was writing about that Boston rap coverage because Boston is such an unsung rap city in all of the end of itself. And I know that there's a lot of music that's coming out of that. Maybe not like a specific sound, but there are folks that are hungry that are continuing to build on that very legacy and really just like uplift it for those who aren't aware. As far as like other places that are truing out talent, it's hard for me to say. I don't know.

I'm not such a good predictor because of the wild twist and turns that hip hop is literally taken over the plus 50 years. I feel like there's just like no telling where it's going to spring. from next. I mean, listen, when Lil Nas X came out of Atlanta and folks couldn't immediately identify what neighborhood was from, I felt like Atlanta was having to panic the fact. Yeah, I'm going to take my horse to the old town road. I'm going to ride till I can't no more. I'm going to tell I can't no more. Where's this old town road and where is it heading? Right? Like radio stations are looking at Shazam streams. or Shazam, you know, searches to figure out like, okay, we need to pick up on this song.

But it wouldn't be until later until they learned that, like, Will Naz-X is actually from Bankhead. So, like, who even knows? What is even going to happen? He's a great example of somebody who really gave the impression that he had just crawled out of the Internet. Like, he had just, like, been... He had crawled out of Red Dead redemption. Yeah. 100%.

We've seen a lot more of that in recent years. you think of Travis Scott in that way. You think of Lizzo also in that way. Artists who don't immediately identify as from the scenes that they're from. Some of that, though, feels just because those scenes have defined themselves in such a way that it's like if you aren't sort of jelled in that same fashion, molded in that same way, that it's like hard to wrap your mind around them being from that place. But I do think, even as an artist like Little Nazax will tell you that he's as influenced by Nikki Minaj as anyone else, I do think that sense of place, even when it's not explicitly at the surface, manifests itself in the artists in the same way.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the perfect example of Travis Scott, like eventually he had to do Astro World. Like, eventually he had to come back and make those connections like explicitly clear. like, hey, this is the city in which I'm from, you know? Well, since we're talking about the future a little bit, we're not really in the business of making, like, predictions here, but we are talking about the 50 year mark. And if we think a little bit about the next 50 years, there's two questions that are on my mind. One is, is there a danger that the streaming age that we live in now could eventually flatten all of these regional distinctions beyond recognition?

Do we feel like, you know, we could reach a point where the average listener couldn't begin to care where somebody grew up and why? I don't really worry about that so much. I do think we will see an increase in the sort of like of the Internet stars. People like to think of the SoundCloud wave of the late 2010s as a marker of that. Thinking about the love that I gave you It's to the point why I love and I hate you And I cannot change you so I must replace you Thinking about Juice World

Thinking about Little Peep Like artists who you can't quite place Everything they're doing because they're blending So many different things together But I think there will always be A regional presence in rap Just because of the way that people think about the music that they're making, where they're making it, and how it exists

in opposition to other things. I think when you flatten your sound, you end up just like everybody else. And one thing rappers love to do is stress how much different they are from the next rapper. So the one way that you really do that is you embody your own sense of identity. You embody who you are, and part of that is always going to be where you come from. It's an interesting question that you're asking because on one hand, maybe it does feel very specific to the digital age, but then on the other hand, it feels like, I don't know. Hip hop has always been built off of taking inspiration from other places.

It was literally built off a sample. And yet somehow, while doing this crate digging, all these artists have been able to create these statements that feel so, so specific to them. obviously like somebody even like Alcast wouldn't have existed without looking to acts like even like a tribe call quest to figure out like you know maybe there's something that we could do here maybe there's a stamp that we could put to this art form as well and so I mean yeah maybe it's maybe with the internet there risks to be like a little bit of flattening but you know in this in the same year where Lotto is collaborating with like a K-pop artist she's also going to like shout out Shottie Lowe and a record with like Cardi B. I think that's just in the fabric of hip hop as to write where you're from. Yeah, I think it'll always be about reinvention and not a joke. Say she got a problem. Imaginary smoke. Bitchy set it's up and put it on the flow. I don't done it all. Feel like shot it low. Yeah, I think it'll always be about reinvention and not reproduction. I think that thinking about little oozy along that distinction,

Like the pink tape just feels so clearly like it's just blurting out influences from the past. But when you think about like previous Uzi stuff, you think about Eternal Take specifically, it's very clear that Uzi is riffing on the fast-wrapping Philly Guys of the Past, thinking about Black Thought, thinking about Cassidy. And it's like that is inherent to the thing that he's doing, but he's very clearly not doing what Black Thought is doing also. He's embodying his own sort of character. So I think the best rap will always be about taking something old and making it original.

And we will continue to see that as long as the genre goes on. Why don't we close out with who's doing that in some interesting ways right now? Is there a record, an artist, a trend, et cetera, from this year, the past couple of years that feels like a sort of a valence, I guess, of what we could expect from the sound of the music going forward. Yeah, I have a few artists that I've been thinking about recently in terms of like, when I think about where this thing is going and just the nature of the industry, they seem to fit the bill. Tierra Wack is the first name that always comes to mind because her Wack world was such a careful. balanced audio visual experience and it seems like as music moves into a sort of visually charged space, you think about TikTok being the leader in new music right now as a video app. It feels like

that sort of attention to that space in addition to the music that you're making and then that music sort of being a sprawl that represents the broad idea. of your vision. I think we will start to see more artists move in that direction as well. You can already see it if you spend a bit of time on TikTok. A lot of the songs

which I try not to do. They seem specifically marketed to function in that way. But yeah, no, yeah, you gotta. That's actually wild. I hadn't even thought of it. Yeah, Tierra Wack made 15 one-minute videos. Before people were really even talking about TikTok like that.

That wasn't a thing that was functioning at that time. boy, keep calling my phone, shit dead like a corpse, corpse, corpse, broke his hard night, sore, sore, change the locks on the door. I also think about Yeat, who very, he feels like mainlining a very certain part of the internet. And I, and B's and boy. Yeah, and I think that we'll start to see that sort of micro-internet artist continue to grow in the years. going forward, I think Gex-inspired rap will be a very prominent aspect of that. But in the reverse, like I think of a rapper like Jay Huss in the UK, who is sort of a representative of the black diaspora.

He pulls from dance hall. He pulls from Afro Pop. He pulls from road rap. He's doing a lot of different things all at once that are cross-cultural. And I think we'll continue to see that, thinking also about bad. Bunny who started as a SoundCloud rapper doing Latin trap, but his stuff became

very referential of the reggaeton of the past, but he channels all of that into a sort of kaleidoscopic pop that exists now. But you know, I always, you know, I always. Also, maybe I'm just an old head, but I do think bars are forever. And I think of like Little Sims.

Like, I think of each generation being like NBA stars of every new generation, adding new moves to the arsenal, becoming more athletic, becoming more comfortable handling the ball, shooting from deeper range. I imagine the same trajectory for rap lyricism. Every new generation sort of picking up new tricks. Little Sims seems to embody a lot of that to me. Not unprogressive what's happening. Ooh, pain tolerance couldn't break us.

Pay homage if you respect how we came up. Cool. Trying to get to the pay par. Hit her from Jamaica. Might do me a favor. True. Big Sim. She is so conventional, but then so conversational.

Her stuff moves clearly to its own beat, but it's never out of pocket. Every time I hear her stuff, I'm sort of stunned. by the virtuosity of it, but also the ease of it. Yeah, real sense of melody there, even if she's not, like, singing necessarily. 100%. I think the only thing that I really, really know for certain is that hip-hop is going to continue to be local, and I think it's going to continue to have, like, these super-specific conversations

that let listeners into their worldview, and then for the places that they represent, make them feel seen. I'm just thinking about this year in Atlanta rap alone. It can be boiled down to like just a couple weeks in June where the rap of Gunna and the rapper Killer Mike had both released their respective albums at the same time, Gunna being a gift and a curse and Killer Mike being Michael. What I heard there was almost like a generational gap

in our understanding of Atlanta, whereas previously when Atlanta came to voice, I guess like the voiceless, when you're thinking back to like the Dungeon Family Days, we now have somebody like Killer Mike sort of epitomizing what might happen when you come up in a Black Mecca, like how the city could work for you, like if you grow up and to sit under these particular circumstances. There's, it's in the song, Spaceship Views.

I refrain from that fuck shit. I'm all about big bucks, bitch. Niggas want to move like rap niggas. Me, I want to move like Rob Smith. Fuck that rap and trap shit. I'm a landlord. Bitch, pay rent. Pay rent.

where he's like, you know, fuck this trash shit. I'm a landlord, paying rent or something, right? But then on the flip side, literally within the same week, you had Gunna, who was arrested as part of this sprawling RICO indictment that was the YSL case, who was in jail for six months before he was released after taking an outward plate, talking about how, I think it's on the song, bread and butter, talking about how like the DA did some sneaky shit, right? And this is out of like total reluctance.

This is somebody who would much rather put his shades on and not acknowledge the hardship of life. Like that has done his persona to a T. But like he's forced to acknowledge it because that's the circumstances in which he says. So it's like interesting to hear these dwelling conversations and perceptions around Atlanta as I'm taking it this year. And I just feel like this is the only genre

that could play host to that, right? And so now the only thing I'm thinking about with hip hop going forward is that I've often heard the hip hop generation being referenced. But as Sheldon was talking about different generations, that's something that we're going to have to reckon with. There's going to be like different names for different generations. And that's going to be wild to me. In the same way that we distinguish Gen X and boomers and millennials and whoever the hell you are, like we're going to have to start doing the same with hip hop. And I'm going to need a glossary. Yeah.

The one that's been on my mind, and it's sort of a confounding one from this year, is Liliadis, let's start here. An example of a record that, I don't know how many people are going to come out and argue for that record as a classic, but it is a really potent example of how the tools and the terminology of the music are really in flux and really have sort of broadened beyond what anybody could have imagined even like 10 years ago. Is that a psych like dream pop album? by a rapper is that like a hip hop album that doesn't really have rapping on it?

Like what is it? Right. What's also going to be interesting too, I think as we're thinking about all these regional signatures that each of these respective hip-hop cities have had, I think each respective hip-hop city is also going to have to come to turns with how those signifiers might be changing to where their own respective sound might not be as recognizable as before. So thinking about Low Yadi, yes, he raps and yes, like his father is up the hip-hop generation.

He used to photograph all these foundational Atlanta rap acts, right? But his music, I think we're going to have to start coming to turns with what we think of as like a Houston rap record now isn't going to sound like that 20 years from now. And are we going to be able to wrap our heads around that? That's going to be the really interesting question going forward. Are we going to be able to look at somebody like Baby Tate or like, you know, Lada with all her pop success in addition to the rap success and recognize that as something that's Atlanta Born and Bread?

or is that going to still feel like completely outside the confines of our respective cities? So I'd be interested in seeing how our own respective understandings that these cities evolve as well. The rap question may be sort of inextricable from the genre question. Thinking about Liwiati, where it's like, will we have genres going forward? Yeah. Will music end up becoming so homogenized, so blended together that we don't even come to understand what artists are doing along those lines anymore. I think that's a very real possibility.

Yaddy, when he was talking about that record, he was like very clearly being like, this is not a rap record. So it's like, what does a psych rock record made by a rapper? Like, what are the distinctions behind that? Yeah. I think over the next decade, two decades, 50 years, we'll spend time probably unpacking that.

Yeah. Yeah, there's something about it that always sticks around. I remember having a searching conversation in music criticism 10, 12 years ago, like around when like Take Care came out about, you know, like if, you know, like if the whole idea of genre was just about to dissolve. But there's certain things about these distinctions that it seems like we keep coming back to. And maybe that's why the local idea is just something that we can't give up. 100%. It was all a dream. I used to read Word Up magazine.

Salt and pepper and heavy D up in the limousine. Hanging pictures on my wall Every Saturday rap attack Mr. Magic Molly Mall I let my tape rock to my tape pop smoking weed and bamboo sipping on private stock Well that seems like as good a place

to end things as any But I want to let people know If you're interested in thinking about these things more NPR has so much hip hop coverage If you go to npr.org slash hip hop 50 You can see all of the essays

In the All Rappas Local series That Sheldon is working on You can watch every hip hop tiny desk All Things Considered is doing a series. There's tons and tons more stuff to read and watch and listen to. So go check it out. But for the moment, I've been joined by Sheldon Pierce and Christina Lee, and we've been talking about the first 50 years of hip-hop and its local basses.

Thank you so much, both of you. Thanks, Doug. Thank you. And thanks for listening.