The Press Box - Southern Rap Special: Best Albums, Dopest Mixtapes, and the Future of the Genre (Ep. 344)

Episode Date: August 25, 2017

Ringer East Coast bureau chief Donnie Kwak is joined by special projects editor Hannah Giorgis and staff writer Micah Peters to talk omissions from "The 20 Best Southern Rap Albums Ever" article on The Ringer, including reader submissions (0:35). Then, Donnie sits down with a roundtable of The Ringer’s music experts to discuss their favorite Southern rap mixtapes (10:20) and predict the future of the genre (31:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's show is brought to you by Jam Session on Channel 33, part of the Ringer podcast network. Tune in as the ringers Juliet Litman and Amanda Dobbins examine the gossip industry, discussing celebrity news, pop culture scandals, and the business of being very famous. Listen to Jam Session every other Wednesday on Channel 33 and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up everybody? This is Donnie Kwok, the East Coast Bureau Chief at the Ringer. I'm on the East Coast. coast in New York, but we're talking South today. It's a very special Southweek edition of Channel 33, part of the Ringer podcast network. This week on the ringer.com is Southweek. We have a ton of great features all originating in the American South. One of those is a ranking of the top 20

best southern rap albums of all time. Today we're going to discuss that list with special projects editor Hannah Georges and staff writer Micah Peters. We're also going to talk about mixtapes since we didn't include mixtapes in the ranking. Lucristen and Justin Charity are going to talk about their favorite Southern Rap mix tapes, as well as Micah. And at the very end, we'll have a little roundtable discussing the trajectory of Southern Rap and what we can foresee in the future. First, joining me right now is the Ringers Special Projects editor Hannah Georges, who helmed Southwick.

Hello, hello. And from L.A., staff writer Micah Peters. Skiar! So the first thing on the agenda is that listing of the best Southern Rap album. of all time and like any list, it was bound to be controversial and there were bound to be omissions. But first of all, maybe, Hannah, you could talk about the methodology that went into compiling the list. Yeah, absolutely.

So we knew from the jump that we were going to leave things off of this because that is how lists on the internet work. But basically, I reached out to folks on staff and said, you know, just send in a list of your top 10, your top 20. Just send in the albums that you know need to be on this. And if there's an album that has an asterisk by it, that you will put your life on, let us know and we'll like configure this. We'll like budge the numbers a little bit. We'll make this happen. And so we did that and got a kind of long list and then had people vote for their top 20, kind of ran the numbers from there.

And then just sort of saw where things shook out. And if there were a couple things that needed to be like filibustered in, we made that happen a little bit too. So very qualitative. Right. Micah, what was your experience in this? I mean, like it is, it was very much a practice and subjective objectivity, I think. I think Okay, Rembert. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, like, go read Rembrandt's T.I. T.I. T.I. Trap Anthem's

bracket. It is thoroughly enjoyable. And I think that I'm going to be using subjective objectivity as a phrase. I think it's just going to become part of my lexicon. But anyway, like, this was tough to say the very least about it. Just because you want to put 400 degrees, like, number one, but then also that where does

Equip and I go and then you want to put Slug Motivation 101 at number two, but then, you know, like where does Soul Food by Goody Mob go? I mean, like, it's just very difficult. It took a lot of jimmying. Yeah, not to mention, obviously the South encompasses quite a few states and areas and sounds even, Atlanta, Houston, Florida, et cetera. So then you have to contend with whether or not northern Virginia is the South. I mean, it was kind of like, you know, somebody suggests eclipse album and you're like damn hell hath no fury is like one of the best rap albums of the last 15 years and does that count as the south i'm not really sure sure so obviously we have our fair share of outcast more on that later uh we have wane on here twice we have j zug motivation 101 uh we have

missy's super dupa fly um and then we do have clips on here we had lord willan on here um and then we got scarface So it's just like we had a broad swath here. Eightful, Master P. Yes, yes, thank you. But I think speaking to what Donnie said about just sort of determining who and what regions and what states were on here, that was definitely a consideration. I think we landed on Florida being allowed, despite our esteemed colleague Kevin Clark's piece, undertaking the question of whether Florida is really the South. But we allowed that.

And then Northern Virginia and sort of D.C. and Maryland, which according to the Census Bureau are the South. We're not the South. The Mason-Dixon line. Right. Waile? Does Walee count? Absolutely not. Oh, wow.

No, you've counted even if he was from Mississippi? Nope. No shouts at Walee. I'm just joking. He would have counted, but he wouldn't have made the list. Yeah, so I think that we kind of set up parameters in that way. And we also made it very clear that we were speaking about albums and not mixtapes. Again, partly just for feasibility here.

Yeah. So, you know, not to spoil anything, but the top five were TIE trap music. Number four was Little Wayne the Carter III. At number three, the aforementioned juvenile 400 degrees. UGK riding dirty at number two and Aquaman I from Outcast number one. So are both of you guys satisfied that that captures the top five Southern rap albums of all time? I am going to probably change my mind about this in the next hour, but I'm going to say that I'm satisfied with it. It's pretty solid.

I mean, I think so. I think that there's been a lot of debate about whether it was the correct Carter to make it up that high. And I think that that's a very worthwhile conversation, but I personally am satisfied. It's questions of the albums on which, basically where it's not regionalized. I mean, the Carter 3 went platinum in a week. Right. Whereas the Carter 2 did not, even though I think the Carter 2 is a better album, that's just me. Carter 2 did make the list, though.

The Carter 2 did make the list, yeah. So it's just, it's difficult. It's difficult to know which one goes where exactly. Right. Well, speaking to that difficulty, you know, anytime you make a list of any kind on the internet, it's inevitable that you're going to leave something out. And actually, Hana, in putting together the piece, we left a form for readers to suggest some of our most glaring omissions. And a bunch of readers did.

And maybe you can go into some of the selections that they had. Yeah, definitely. So a strong 25% of the responses were one outcast album or another. They wanted it to be top 25 outcast albums. I love outcast. Everybody here loves outcast, but we cannot do a list that is like 50% outcast. So I think the number one response was ATLians, which is fair. One of my favorite responses is from Dancy.

So thank you, Dan. He says, cooler than a polo bear's toenails and tight like the nuts and bolts. A.T. aliens marked the moment when Outcast started to reach their potential as genre-bending world conquerors. In just two years, they came a long way, like those slim-ass cigarettes from Virginia from the chicken fried playful punk. No, but I'm into it. No, but I'm into it. Thank you. No, I love it.

It says, classics like Elevators, two Dope Boys in the title tracks, stand up to anything in their award, and under-heralded tracks like Mainstream Wheels of Steel and Decatur Salm round out the biggest omission from the Ringer's southern rap list. And I will allow that. I agree. Thank you, Dan. But we had some other fun submissions. We had a ludicrous one in here. We got a couple votes for word and mouth, which I'll allow Little Brothers Minstrel Show.

And then my personal favorite was the nomination for Crime Mob, the album Crime Mob, where the justification was just Nuck a Few Buck. That's it. Shout out, Matt Grisham. Thank you, Matt. Yes. Very much appreciated. And you know what? I will allow it.

I'm looking over these list of submissions. People submitted Plyze, Boosie, Mike Jones. Yes. Believe it or not. No, I believe it. That's not the ludicrous submission that Hanna was referring to. There was actually ludicrous, but there's also Mike Jones. Little brother, kind of linguists, scarface, et cetera.

Was there one artist that you felt was a glaring omission? I really did feel bad about not putting a boozy out and putting badass on here. I really wanted to. Yeah. But then again, it was just one of those things that I felt was really special to a lot of people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and maybe Alabama, but not necessarily the entire South. Like, Boosie is so important. But, like, I just, like, it's not one of those things that I can. Do you need a moment?

I might need a moment, you know. But what about Bill Simmons BFF Gucci-May? Well, that's where the mixed year. question comes up. And Mike and I talked a lot about this, but it feels like a lot of Gucci's most iconic work has been from mixtapes and not necessarily from studio albums. So, unfortunately, we had to give him the axe on this one. And then Shay Serrano's favorite rapper, Jay Cole. Who? Who? Jay Cole is definitely South. I mean, yes. But in order to qualify for this ranking, they have to be good albums. So no shade on Jay Cole. No shade on Jay Cole. Like, Jay

Cole is a good artist, but looking at this list, I have the list right in front of me of the 20 that made it and I don't know who you would supplant. So you need to be of a certain level of intelligence to, we can stop it right there. Yeah, I think that there was some, you know, there were some people who felt some ire about our inclusion of DS2 on here. And those might be people who would have argued for a J-Col inclusion instead. And that's perfectly fine. They're entitled to do that. They're entitled to be wrong about things, you know? If you don't like to have fun, that is your thing. But it also doesn't have to be anybody's problem, but you're. On that note, we just talked about how mixtapes didn't make this list.

So coming up next, we're going to talk about the great Southern rap mixtapes of all time. Before we move on, I wanted to tell you about the ringers Game of Thrones live after show Talk the Thrones. All season long, Andy Greenwald, Mother of Dragons, Mallory Rubin, Chris Ryan, and our very own maister, Jason Concepcion, have been coming to you live after the East Coast airings of Game of Thrones season seven. And they'll continue to do so with the season finale this Sunday. Talk the Throne streams exclusively on Twitter and Periscope right after Game Thrones ends and can be found on the Ringers' Twitter handle at Ringer. They'll be reacting at the same time as you, contextualizing the events and explaining everything that just unfolded.

Again, the show is called Talk to Thrones and you can stream it live after the East Coast airing of Game of Thrones on our Twitter and Periscope at Ringer. And now back to the show. All right, so now we're going to talk about mixtapes. As we mentioned before, on our best southern rap list, we didn't include mixtapes. simply because there are so many great Southern rap mixtapes that to include them would have made our list way too long. A brief history of mixtapes. They were originally DJ-led vehicles to play unreleased, exclusive promo records. And then somewhere around the turn of the century, around 2000, they became artist-led and artists like 50 Cent and the diplomats in New York.

use them for their own promotional purposes to release music without label oversight. And then one could argue the South took over that in the mid-2000s to late 2000s, and a slew of really big artists released amazing mixtapes. And we're going to talk about some of the best ones. And first, bringing back Micah Peters to talk about his favorite mixtape from probably the best mixtape artists of the last 10 years. Oh, man. Okay.

So the thing is that, like, again, we couldn't put mixed tape. tapes on the Southern Rap album ranking thing, but like, I would rather have had the drought three over the Carter three in like the most important, like in the top, what was it? What do we rank the Carter three? It must have been. Oh, the Carter three was in the top five. Yeah, exactly. I would rather have the drought three there. Right before the drought three was, I guess like, you could say it was dedication to, which I mean like is Wayne kind of positioning himself as like Southern Rap Ambassador, there was a motivation was on it, which I mean, like, I think I listened to before like every game and any sport I played in high school probably.

Wait, so let's set the table for the drought three, I mean, because it's 2007, right? This is kind of, this is when Wayne is basically beating his chest as I'm the best rapper in the game. Well, yeah, I mean, like, and this was also him kind of reaching across or, you know, transcendent cultural variance in a way that he was just insofar that he was rapping over like Beyonce and Sierra and Narls Barkley and he wrapped over dead presidents too and I mean he wrapped over show me what you got I mean it was like the room would smell like ozone and he just like kind of even for we taken over because he was on the original song sitting on a throne in a pink bait putty and

talking about how he liked this sprite Easter pink but the mixtape version of it, let me just put this line out there for you. Go for it. Go for it. I know it's in your head. Yeah, it's that one part where it's just kind of like he just runs an electrical current through the song and just starts

going off the top just saying words and it makes sense. It's like beef, yes, chest, feet, tag bag, blood, sheets, yikes, geeks, crape, Scott, scorch, can I borrow your yacht? And I was like, what in

The world. Wayne was just blacking out on every song. I mean, and we should mention that the Drought 3 is a double disc. So it's a lot of music. And I think you were speaking to it before. He basically took every beat that was popular during that time and killed it. And I think even, you know, Wayne was doing that on mixed tapes with squat up and in the past. I mean, like, I guess there's something to that that here's one of the best rappers

rapping over all the beats by inferior rappers and making the songs. better. Yeah. I mean, like, it's basically just, I'm going to showcase my range and ability and the fact that I can hit a moving target from 500 yards, like, with one eye closed. That's what most of this felt like. And he would take over songs, right? Like, you wouldn't want to hear the original song after he spit on that beat. I have not listened to the original version of Show Me What You Got since I heard Do is What I Got. That was a pretty, you know, critical moment or a turning point there because that was like hove you know that was the kingdom come single and that's where wayne kind of was just like you're old yeah he had danica patrick in the music video and whatnot and and like

did nobody care because little way he came through talking about do's what i got little mama does what i got pray lady hands up i'm paid i'm paid and that was just like wow this is amazing do you think though that given that you would want this to replace carter three that wayne is the type of artist that you can get the best out of them when you kind of remove all the boundaries and sort of let him do whatever he wants on whatever beat. Yeah. I mean, like, Wayne is at his best when he's free associating, like, just kind of just rejecting all of the possible futures until like the one that he wants to take opens up. It's remarkable. This is what everybody points to the difference between the idea of album Wayne and mixtape Wayne and most anybody that listens to and enjoys rap music,

much prefers mixtape Wayne. Right. There's no lollipops on the mixtapes, right? Listen, do not disrespect lollipop in my presence. Thank you. So other than the drought three, is there like a number two as far as the mixtapes go? I think that dedication two would come as a close second, and I really struggle between choosing between that one and low Louisiana volume one. Will Louisiana Volume one probably has my top three favorite Wayne song on it. Which is what?

Amen. Street Runner produced it, but recently remastered it and re-released it last year, last summer, I want to say. And it's just a heart-wrenching, but also like hard as nails song about, I mean, like, it's so, it's so emotional. Yeah, can I give you my best Wayne mixtape song ever? Sky's the limit. Oh, yeah. I don't even know what tape that song, but that's amazing song. Yeah, I mean, like he's rapping over that, uh, the Mike Jones record.

It's just like I'm probably in the ocean, swimming with the fishes. That Mike Jones record got buried after that. For Mike Jones. But, I mean, like, mixtape Wayne is just incredibly special. All right, Micah. Thank you for that very emotional look back at Wayne's best tape. Anytime, Donnie. Now we're going to move on and bring in staff writer Justin Charity.

What's up, Justin? Hey, Donnie. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. Justin's going to talk about his favorite Southern Mix tape. And it is Rich Gang, The Tour Part 1, which is kind of an inelegant title. But, Justin, you talk about why you chose this as your favorite Southern mixtape. Well, look, first I should say, I don't know what everyone else picks.

So I hope someone on here is caping for the five Gucci tapes that should be on this list. I'd like to think I've picked the most recent one. So Rich Gang, the Tour Part 1 is a collaboration, a duets mixtape that Young Thug and Rich Homi Kwan dropped in September 24th. It feels so long ago, but it really, it's only three years ago. Yes. Well, it feels so long ago because it was a watershed moment, really. It really was. I mean, to be honest, I think this is the tape that put Young Thug on the commercial map.

Is that fair? It is the beginning of him, of a lot of people who didn't get Young Thug for a few years, finally being like, oh, okay, I get this. And I think part of it is because Rich Gang, the Tour Part 1, right, is this very noir, very, very, song album between Rich Homi Kwan, who otherwise had had hits before then, right? He had had hits with GZ. He had solo hits. But he's a very sort of Atlanta club rapper guy who raps. And, you know, this album with Young Thug who both raps a lot and used to get a lot of flack for, I think a lot of people sort of dismissed Young Thug is like a little Wayne clone. But when these two came together to make this album, I feel like it was just this very potent. sense of this is rap, but it's R&B, but it's not R&B in the sense that Drake is, where it's like someone's trying to make radio hits. It's R&B in the sense that it's just this very passionately sung melodic riffing and these two guys going back and forth with very strange imagery and really strange hooks and really strange wordplay that just sort of makes sense, even though, again,

sort of like coming into the project like Ritomi Kwan and Young Thug are not very similar rappers and they have very different dispositions, but they just worked so well in this tape together, which is why they were a group. They were a group called Rich Gang and they eventually... Well, Lifestyle was like their biggest... Wait. What year was Lifestyle? Was that immediately before? I was just looking it up. This mixtape came out in September of 2014 and Lifestyle came out in June 2014. So that kind of rocked the summer and then they dropped the mixtape. Lifestyle actually put Young Thug on the commercial map and then this was like the hook that

followed the jab kind of. Because I think it was basically lifestyle. was the big song of the summer that wasn't fancy by easy. Right, right, right. But it's funny because lifestyle is a sort of very summery, bright, sort of conventionally poppy rap crossover hit. And then the tour comes around a few months later. Like I said, it's very noir. It's sort of very moody and dark and romantic, which is just a strange thing to hear

rich homie Kwan involved in and made a bit more. sense for Thug, but I think for a lot of people, this tape is surprising with Thug, because I think before lifestyle, people didn't know what to do with Young Thug. It was novelty. Yeah. For people. But you're actually, I'm interested in what your opinion is of the third person that's top billed on this mixtape. And that's, of course, rubbed hands. Birdman. The Birdman. So the Spector of Birdman is there on every song, you know, the Spector of or him actually speaking. So, you know, what role do you think he had in making this tape?

Let me lead with an anecdote that I once spent a night in a studio with Young Thug for Tommy Kwan and Birdman. Wow. When they were going to make a sequel, they were going to release the sort of sequel to this tape, which gang The Door Part 2, which kind of unraveled because all the songs leaked. But Birdman, I think he looms over the record in so much as he is the person who sort of, despite young thugs sort of very strange convoluted disorganized record label signing situation that I think was sort of holding him back for a few years a couple years ago he was the person that sort of drew young thug out of that confusion of like who is he releasing music for

what label is his projects coming out under and put him in a position to release like a full-length tape with Kwan at a time when I think people were sort of worried about the consistency of Thug being able to get his finances straight to release music and profit off music consistently. Right. He was kind of like a Shug Knight type figure in the sense that he was sort of rescuing artists that were kind of being stranded on their labels. Right. Correct.

Yeah. So and sonically, you mentioned kind of it being a little dark and menacing, I might call it. I mean, London on the track is... Love London. Yeah. London is one of my favorite producers. of like the decade. I love love love another of the track.

He's very piano heavy, very like... But sparse in a way. Yeah. Yeah. Like, how would you describe, like, the beats? I mean, they, you know, you were talking about how Thug and Kwan sort of, everything kind of works in concert because you have two different voice tones and then you have these like slinky, sort of menacing beats.

Well, this is the thing, right? I want to say, when I describe this album is dark and noir, like, there's a version of that that someone might understand is like a prodigy. album, right? Like a mob deep album. And I don't mean it like that. It's sort of London on the track, his production style is dark and has this very like chamber music vibe to a lot of it. But the thing that makes it pop on this album is that a lot of what Young Thug and Rich Homi Kwan are doing on it is very loopy. It gets kind of cartoony and loopy in spots. And I'm thinking of songs like, Tell them lies, which is a ballad.

It's a very strange ballad, like, and the milk It's a very strange ballad where it's like, I mean, one, it's the rapper thing of like, in the R&B singer thing, a ballad that's about cheating on someone. You know, but it's just like the imagery of it gets so loopy and Saturday morning cartoony. And that's what makes it feel so distinct.

It's like the mood is dark, but the actual songwriting is scatterbrained and just very creative. So as you've said, I mean, this tape is pretty amazing and it's an artifact of a time a few years ago. It begs the question, why, what happened to Rich Gang? Like, why didn't they make five classic mixtapes or albums after that, I guess? Well, along the time when this tape came out and Young Thug really was starting to get solo traction, he had this reputation of being a troll on the internet, of being on Instagram captions and things like that. And he did a series of interviews shortly after this tape came out where it was clear that, like, there was some static between him and Rich Homi Kwan.

And he was sort of disparaging Rich Hohen openly in interviews, but it was sort of hard to read whether he was being sincere or whether he was just joking. Sometimes I wonder if Richomi Kwan knew what was happening. These guys smoked themselves stupid. They were just started looking at each other's side of, you know, it happens in wrap. But I mentioned this before, like being in the studio with Birdman and Richelomy and hearing tracks in New York. It was one time Birdman was in New York playing tracks from the second tape. The problem is that the second tape, I think it exists online technically. It never really came out in the same way that the first tape came out just because the songs all leaked.

I mean, it wasn't even just those songs. I remember there was a dump by the end of the year by December 2014 where it was just like 200 unreleased Young Thug and Ritomi Kwan songs just all dumped on the internet. Right. And people would make their favorite mixes of them. They would upload like specific SoundCloud playlist that were sort of the fan versions of what they wanted Rich Gang the Tour part two to be. But because of that, it's almost like a little B type situation where a little B were released

like a 60 track album. and I'll have to pare it down. It's sort of like, I have tracks like, hey, I that are my, like, they're how I think of, like, the future of that group, but otherwise it just sort of fell apart. The songs leaked, Young Thug and Rich Homi fell out, and that was the end of Rich Gang. So all you have, all we have, I guess, is Rich Gang, the tour part one. If you're going to go out, if you're only going to have one album, make it a classic. But I love it.

I love it so much. It's a special, it's a special experience. Thank you, Justin. Yeah. And now we're going to bring in, bring a, bring a, staff writer Victor Lukerson, a genuine southerner from the state of Alabama. What's up, Victor? Hey, Donnie. How you doing? Doing good. For your mixtape, you chose the 2011 release from Big Crit called Return of Forever. That's right. And you actually highlighted a particular song called Country Shit,

the remix of Country Shit. What went into your selection of this mixtape and that song? Yeah, so for me, I mean, I'm from Alabama and have loved Southern rap my whole life. But I guess you see a lot of Southern rap that sort of represents the major cities, you know, whether it's Atlanta, Houston, Miami, whatever. And Big Crit being from Mississippi, like, he's from like a smaller place. I'm from Montgomery, Alabama, which is also like a relatively small place. And I like with Crit that he's able to sort of represent a more, I don't know Gritty is a white word, but he just sort of uses a lot of things that are more like country and like deeply Southern to me

versus maybe some of us that you hear from the artists from major cities. So, I mean, I always vibe with that about him. And with Country Shit in particular, he just uses these sort of like cultural touchstones, like in the course of the song he's talking about Candy dance and College Green, Southern Staples, you know. So then that's the kind of thing where even if he's from Mississippi and not from Alabama, that's an experience we share together. And that always vibe with me when he was popping off five or six years ago.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting with Big Crit that I think the word most often associated with him is underrated. Yeah. And ever since he came out, he's been highly respected. but he hasn't really crossed over or had that big, huge feature that would kind of get him over the mainstream line. Do you think it's because maybe he's too regional or what do you think? Yeah, I don't know. I think part of it is just that he has a very sort of traditional approach.

You know, like his whole vibe was sort of, I'm going to be talking about these Southern Touchstones, whether it's like the food. I get his time machine that's about his Cadillac on Return of Forever. and he sort of reverest, he ever seen, he ever since outcast sometimes in his song. He's just, this very sort of like traditional, maybe you can say backwards-looking approach to Southern Rap. And I feel like as he was coming up, you had people like Future and Migos who were just like this entire new vanguard of music.

So I feel like Crits' whole vibe is maybe just seen a little bit old fashioned for sort of where Southern Rap ended up moving in the last few years. Man, that's why he hasn't really been able to sort of reach that next level of popularity. Right. Is there something that you find unique to this particular? mixtape that puts it over the proper albums he's released or even other mixtapes he's released? I mean, part of it's just, this is my introduction to him.

Right. So I think I heard this for the first time just through my friends. I was in college at the time this came out. And so for me, it was a cool. This is also like, so I'm like a huge outcast man. They're my favorite group. And this is maybe four or five years after I got said dissolved. And I sort of been looking for someone else who could capture that, I guess that sense of both like the down

homeness and sort of country vibe, but also have that moral introspection and that sort of like elevated, you know, conscious rap, if you're going to call it that. I thought Chris sort of captured that dynamic in a really specific way that wasn't that common, especially among southern rappers at the time. So I think for me, that's really what stuck out about him for me. And Retina Forever does that really well because you have songs like country shit or time machine, like I mentioned, which are very sort of about physical things in the South. And then you have other songs like The Vent talking about sort of dealing with violence in this

community and that kind of stuff. So he did a good job of balancing those two poles. And I think that's something that isn't really done anymore because it's not Southern Rap Today is sort of more nihilist and just sort of like, right. It's like very little moral hand-wringing in Southern rap today. Right. I mean, Big Crit is obviously still active in releasing music. But I wanted to touch on who today has kind of taken that mantle, although he hasn't retired or anything. Is there, are there any artists that are out in 2017 or popular that kind of speak to you? in the way that Crit did when you were in school? Oh, no, I feel like there isn't really, like, I mean, it's kind of like what we were saying.

I kind of feel like, to me, it kind of felt like, I remember when I was in school, like, Big Crit and Jay Cole were sort of the two guys who were, like, traditionalists. Like, Jay Cole is from the South, too, but not really. He's a more like an East Coast guy, you know? Right. And Big Crit was also, they were both very traditionalist and very, like, reverent for the past, past artists, you know? Right. And it feels like Jay Cole sort of, like, was able to do that and sort of,

emulate older artists and sort of take off with it. And I guess he was emulating more people, though, like Kanye West or just East Coast rappers as well. Whereas Big Crit was trying to emulate the southern rappers, like Outcast, and then the South just, like, revolutionized. So I guess I probably Jay Cole's probably the closest, but I also don't like Jay Cole that much. Nobody liked Jay Cole, unfortunately.

I'm sorry, Jay Cole. Were there any, are there any rappers from your home state that you would recommend from Alabama? Yeah, there's G-side. They are a duo from Huntsville. Okay. And they've been around off and on since the early 2010s. I would say they kind of have a sort of like bombastic, like early era, young GZ type of sound. But they're a little bit more.

They still have that sort of, I'm going to have a more reckoning within my own music kind of thing. They have this album, Island from 2011, that I think does a good job of mixing the sort of bomb of modern southern rap with a lot of compelling introspection. So I'd recommend them a lot. Cool. G-side from Huntsville and Big Crit Return of Forever. Thank you a lot, Vic. All right. No problem, Donnie. Now that we're done looking in the past to talk about Southern rap, we're going to look into the future. We're bringing back Justin and Micah to discuss the future of Southern rap. What's up, boys? Yeah, yeah.

Yo. So if you look at history, obviously, commercial hip-hop in the 90s was West Coast. It went to New York. Then it got taken over by Atlanta. Houston had a little shout. And then now it's Florida. What's next? Did you say Louisiana? Did we just skip Louisiana?

Oh, my God. I guess the main point I'm trying to make is it went. Listen, Donnie. The main point I'm trying to make is it went from, at least commercially, west to east to south. And South has been dominant now for over a decade. Right. And the current crop of popular rappers actually all hail from Florida.

I know you wrote that recently, Justin. Well, first of all, I guess is this SoundCloud Arrow? really regional? Are they Florida rappers or are they SoundCloud rappers? I think they're definitely Florida rappers, right? I mean, it's harder to answer that question now for the reason you just said, which is SoundCloud, which makes it so that, you know, I feel like back in the day, if a region had an aesthetic signature, right, whether it's like, you know, somewhere as big as New York or like something is diffused as like the Pacific Northwest, like how that sounds spreads and translates is a bit more limited. Whereas now you're right. It's sort of like,

everyone who has a SoundCloud account can listen to that South Florida hazy, spaced out rap and try to approximate it in this very immediate sense. But I still think that like all of the stars of it are like these definitively tatted up, weird dread South Florida kids. Yeah, I mean, well, Michael, remember like 10 years ago or so there was like a big who's the king of the South, TI and then Ludacris was arguing with him and little flip had his little say, is there a king of the South in 2017? Does anybody want to be the king of the South? I don't think that there's necessarily a King of the South per se. I don't think that that's as

much of a salient question as it used to be. I mean, take for instance, say in 2005, 2006, weighing rap, and over motivation and then like top back on the drought in the drought three, talking about, you know, T.I. is the King of the South. Don't get it twisted, but I am the best rapper alive. And then like on Shooter saying, you know, to radio stations, I'm tired of being patience, stop being rapper racist, region haters. Like, there was really a point in time where Lil Wayne could not be considered the best rapper. His largest barrier to entry was because he was from the South.

Right. And, I mean, like, it's obviously not the case anymore. I mean, like, Southern Rap is now, like, the mainstream sound. It's not really a question of who the King of the South has anymore. It's just everybody just wants to be the best rapper or the most popular one or the sell the most records. I don't think that the king of the South question is really a thing anymore. Mike, I think the other half of that, though, too, is that the 2000s were sort of the peak of blockbuster rap albums of like you being able to really shut down a month with a rap album.

That's a good point. You know what I mean? So it's like a TI or like a little flip going however many times platinum, right? Like that was sort of how you sort of oriented that conversation of, I'm the king of the South in a way that I think that the pace of how rap music evolves and how it's released in this decade has just become so accelerated and it requires such rapid adaptation that there's never time really for anyone to settle into prominence in such a prolonged way that you would even think of their sort of run as a throne you know no one's that comfortable in their own chair although I'll say it I think Cuevo or a few future is probably the king of the south. I mean, we can argue that. It's future. It's future. You know, it strikes me looking at the list that we put together the southern rap albums, how when those albums came out, maybe from a northerner's perspective, it was like

a very, they were distinct sounds that were different, and they were very south. And now, you know, Fat Joe's songs sound like Migo songs. So the South... What a time to be alive. So the southern sound... What a time to not be dead. The trap sound. I guess. I mean, obviously there's mumble core and there's sound cloud, but maybe you guys can speak a little bit to how pervasive now the South aesthetic is. It's really taking over rap music.

If you want to talk about people borrowing the Southern rap aesthetic, I mean, everybody does that now. I mean, you have like a Katie Perry record that sounds like I want to make this left turn at this point in my pop career. Let me get Migos on a song. Or you have the Vine Kid, Logan Paul, making a song about the hate. Jake Paul. Whoever, really. I'm sad that I know who that is. I'm sad that I know his real name, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, everybody, everybody's borrowing from it. Yeah, Justin, I mean, what do you think about that trend as far as like, does that

kind of dilute regionalism a little bit? Like, who's from the South? Well, are you saying, sorry, to clarify, are you asking about the sort of prevalence of Southern aesthetic, like just everywhere in music and in culture right now? Yeah, I mean, because if we're talking about the trajectory of Southern rap or the future of it, I mean, I mean, I guess what the SoundCloud movement really is is a response to trap, I guess. It's just something different.

It's like the next level. Because that's sort of what I think when Michael mentions Katie Perry and Migos, right, I think, okay, that's the state of trap music. It's not necessarily the state of Southern rap. That's the state of trap. The two have been synonymous. No, no, totally. But it's like it's almost because trap music has crested at that sort of level of like that middle brow sweet spot. that's the exact time where you would expect something like the current South Florida.

So if you want to be cutting edge in 2017 now instead of getting Migos, do you think you're going to get little peep or a little pump or a little penguin? Or a little something? I mean, he's not with Yadi. I mean, now it's like the Migos and future features now like Passet and the sound that people want, I guess is that SoundCloud sound to some effect, right? Yeah, exactly. And I don't think that Katie Perry is like at that door yet.

Well, you look, Taylor Swift's a song, you know, her next album, she might have... She's a little pump. Taylor Swift featuring a little pump. You heard of it first. I mean, like, hey, the album cover is in black and white and she's wearing a chain choker, you know? Like it's, you know, maybe she's turning full heel. Yeah. Well, so in the interest of looking forward, let's have this hypothetical in 20 years.

we're putting together a best Southern rap album list. Are any artists that are currently active and out today? Or do you think they have the potential to make a list like that? Michael, you go first on this one. Young Thug. Young Thug. It's a good one. Real.

Like, Future and Young Thug will definitely be on it. Future's already on it. I mean, like, he will still be on it in 20 years probably. I will say that, like, my way of looking that far down the road will be that 20 years from now, I think we're going to look at at least rap music very differently. know that this sort of let's rank album's paradigm will make sense because I just think we're so deep into the sort of post-mix tape Southern moment that the album seems to be so far down the list of priorities in terms of how artists approach career.

It's like the best southern rap Instagram captions. Right. But I do think Thug, I agree with Micah that sort of despite that moment, Thug is somebody who's an album artist and future is somebody who is an album artist. Do you think that maybe in 20 years' time we might have, I guess, new subdivisions of like of the genre so that like you're now talking about instead of it just being like the best 20 rock albums, you have like the best 20 punk rock albums, the best alternative rock albums. Do you think you're going to have those kind of like divisions in rap music in 20 years? Because I mean like if you do, then I mean, I think that that ranking looks different. Maybe it's several like you have.

Yeah, I mean, Southern rap overall as a. category feels almost very anachronistic right now, right? Yeah, it's it's like the subdivision maker that you're describing sounds very appealing. And it would make sense, but I also have this sort of counterthought that if anything right now, it feels like people are less and less interested in the idea of genre and they're sort of interested in like scrambling that sort of micro subdivision altogether. So I think in contemporary terms, it makes sense. I think in the future, I wonder if we want to have just thrown out.

out all of that. And we really will just look at it as like rap music is all rap music. Yeah. Well, my word on this is no matter what, when it is, 20, 30, 50 years in the future, Outcast will still be number one. I mean, that's real. It's hard to argue with. That's hard to argue. That's very true. Thank you both. And that about does it for our Southern Rap podcast on Channel 33, part of the Ringer podcast network. Please check out the best Southern rap albums currently on Theringer.com. And make sure to read all of our pieces on Southweek, including features from Victor Lucasen, Danny Chow and Justin Charity. See you next. time.