Best Southern Rap City/State

I changed my mind, you can't pick a state, it has to be a city.

atlanta overall.

memphis is a close second, but i really don't like much beyond hypnotize minds and eightball&mjg

houston would be up there, but they don't seem capable of producing consistent albums. their beats are too goofy and daisy.

yeah, can't really fuck with ATL.

I should have disqualified Atlanta.

What do you mean by daisy?

(in order, more or less)
Atlanta
Virginia Beach
Memphis
New Orleans
Miami

SOFT

Fuck Atlanta. A bunch of shouting over the same beat over and over again or Southern-accented Tribe Called Quest imitators with goofy names. Zzzzzzzzzzz.

there's really way too many different cliques and styles in Atlanta for that kind of generalization to make any sense. if you like Houston better, say so, but don't start with all that combative bullshit.

Sorry, I like Atlanta, I just wanted to read a vehement defense of it in response to my overgeneralization.

oh, ok. mission accomplished, then.

There was no vehement defense of Atlanta. You just made me feel bad for my empty provocation.

I do like Houston and will explain why. I imagine it in a certain way that might not be right, though. I don't know very much about it except for the music.

It's very insular, I think. That's important. There's sort of a mixtape ghetto that no one can escape, everyone's spending their time putting out four hundred undergrounds a year instead of taking the next step (I think the 'next step' is always getting signed to Rap-A-Lot). (I'm sure Houston must have the most rap record releases per capita) (I sort of imagine the mixtapes as being sort of like how I imagine pirate radio in London is, since there are so many of them and they're so linked to the city itself, the language is so Houston and the tapes are meant for Houston, and they quick and broad distribution of them-- but it's only my imagination). Chamillionaire bragged on his messageboard (the opening of the sentence is funny because I sound like NP talking about El-P or someone like that-- but that's part of the reason I like pretending to be down with it, the lame undergroundness. [Cham and Paul Wall have both responded to my e-mails!][I listen to feeds of Damage Control on KPFT and it's so cool to hear, like, 'C-Note and Yungstar are up in the studio tonight' and someone else drops by and someone after that and they gossip about Lil Flex and I actually know what they're talking about and they all get on this beat together live and-- it's just cool] [I think the fact that there's a lame undergroundness for me to get hooked into is key, too.]) about getting offered, I think, twice what Flip got from Sony but he's still doing his fucking undergrounds. And I sort of imagine the outside rap world being filtered into Houston by mixtape DJs and the mixtape ghetto rappers (Chamillionaire also bragged about his 'Slow Jamz' remix getting more spins than the original on The Box)(Swishahouse albums are basically compilations of what's hot on the radio-- but Houstonized. And there are lots of DJs doing the same with, doing it with R&B even [Check for the thousands of Take It 2 Da Room/Fuck Action/Love Motion screwed R&B comps]). There's a recognizable style, too, that I love, starting with all the Screwed Up Click rappers, coming down from them, the slow, warm, cool thing, slangy and accented. (On the new Z-Ro album on Rap-A-Lot, it seems like you can hear him slipping out of straight Scarface rip-off into how he sounded in his SUC days and how every Houston mixtape rapper sounds now).

I do love screw music, too. I love Screw's tapes, the feeling they give that he was checking out how different things sounded and the feeling that you're just sitting in a room with five or six guys with a microphone and a turntable, and the amazing sound of them, the beats to the rappers. And the Swishahouse stuff, which has a different motivation for slowing down than Screw did. And I love hearing big Southern records screwed. I love the sound of it.

Fact: Every single major Southern city has a hotter rap scene than any East Coast city.

I think there might be a lot of big Southern stuff that I miss, stuff that gets a lot of regional airplay but hasn't broken that big yet. It might get a page in Murder Dog but I won't know what it is and won't have heard of it and won't know to pay attention. Like, it's too big to be on whatever mixtapes I'm hearing but too small to get on Rap City. Like, Baby D or Drama, I'm thinking. But I'm not sure! There is so much amazing music to hear.

HOUSTON TOP 5

1. Lil Flip.
2. Chamillionaire.
3. Fat Pat.
4. Mike Jones.
5. Big Moe.

New Orleans is my second favorite and I wish I knew way more about. I'd love if someone made a rough guide to New Orleans for me. I'd love to see a rough guide for every Southern city-state.

There's a good Ca$h Money CDR thread in the archives that has good suggestions but lots of good early NO rap has kind of been lost to time and is basically unslskable--Pimp Daddy, early UNLV, Tim Smooth, the Take Fo' records stuff, a lot of early CMR full-lengths that can occasionally be found in used bins, etc. Mystikal's first two records are not hard to find and are awesome but it's kind of hard for me to make a list of No Limit tracks that I really love. No Limit is often best in like "No Limit Megamixes!" that one finds on Kazaa or something--Beats By The Pound's ideas get old quick for me. The later stuff ie "Ooohweee" (with a beat by Fullpack I think) is a lot better. Also Freak Nasty is always good.

"Get Off The Corner" may be my favorite NOLA song. Or "Shine" or "Fuck the World" or etc etc.

As for ranking localities I'd go:

New Orleans
Memphis
Miami
those weird releases out of southern Mississippi
VA Beach (barely the south)
Atlanta which was ruined by Outkast.

Though Lil Jon is almost as good right now as Mannie Fresh was 1998-2001.

I actually made a Rough Guide to New Orleans Rap on one of the rough guide threads but confused Memphis and New Orleans in the title. I know UNLV and Pimp Daddy and Tim Smooth and a few others but only from single tracks, mostly. But that's about it! (Other than Cash Money and No Limit affiliates).

Who are the current bounce superstars other than Choppa?

Hot Boy Ronald is the most prominent. My girlfriend told me she heard "Walk Like Ronald" on Dallas radio once--but he's just been doing different mixes of that song for like two years now. The most recent one replaces "toot your booty in the air" with "wave your guns in the air" which seems less pleasant to me.

5th Ward Weebie does a lot of good stuff. He guests on No Limit occasionally but his LPs are on some other label. There are also a lot of tiny labels run by for example a friend of mine who's a security guard at the aquarium--he pirated a copy of Photoshop and now spends all his time designing beyond-Pen & Pixel style artwork. They released a record by a guy called ERC from the 17th ward who is crazy talented with some fairly notable people laying down beats.

Pure bounce is very hard to find these days outside the clubs (to which I don't really go) so these CMR-style bounce-gangsta-etc hybrids is what people seem to listen to most.

From the little I've heard (it's very hard to find, even on Kazaa), I think I like Choppa's style the best, the hardness and sophistication of his beats compared to the DJ Jubilee and Hot Boy Ronald and whatever stuff, which sounds light and too bright.

And I think I like what I think are the crossover bounce tracks by not fully bounce guys, like, one of the two or three songs on the album with that bounce beat. I always see the 7th Ward Soulja song with Choppa on it on Uncut and it's pure bounce but everything else I've heard by him has been sort of standard NO gangsta.

The whole image of New Orleans is attractive, too, even if it shouldn't be. They were advertising a DVD in the back of XXL with blood spatter font, all like, CP3 THE DEADLIEST PROJECT IN AMERICA -- 7 PEOPLE WERE SHOT DURING THE FILMING OF THIS DOCUMENTARY and all that. I was kind of upset when I originally saw the advertisement but I think I'd still like to see it.

Heh. New Orleans is a hard place to explain. It goes block by block--like, there used to be a bustling drug spot in front of my house (since they shut the bar down it's usually just like 10 people shooting dice and trying to out-stereo each other) but there are $750000 houses four blocks up the street. The Garden District, land of Anne Rice etc is six blocks from the Magnolia Projects. So it's weird. Very rarely threatening though.

It's really really cheap to live here which is great.

Tell me about 5th Ward Weebie, 7th Ward Soldier, 5th Ward Boyz, 50-50 Twin and UNLV. Just tell me everything or anything.

My favourite city is overall Houston, for fucks sake, they have like 3 of the greatest rappers ever, let alone screw music, swishahouse, Boss Hogg Outlawz and all that. It just seems like the realest rap city to me and i haven't even been to the US. There are plenty of really amazing albums from Houston (Ridin Dirty, Dirty Money, Mr. Scarface Is Back) but it is definitely a mixtape city. My second favourite is probably Memphis just because i'll rep HCP to death, DJ Paul & Juicy J are the greatest beat makers in the world, i've always preferred UGK to 8Ball & MJG though it's a close one, Bun B is undoubtedly one of the GOATs and Pimp C is a better sidekick than MJG, again they seem realer. New Orleans, well i know very little other than Cash Money and No Limit (hence my question), but again it seems like a very real city, and the Hot Boyz are one of the greatest groups of all time. Bounce i'm only just getting into, i'm enjoying DJ Jubilee - Walk With It alot. As for Atlanta, well i'm not gonna hate on the first Outkast album, but i've always found them kind of cheesy. Lil Jon is aight, i can see how rock critics are attracted to all that strip-club Euro dance synth nonsense but i can take it or leave it to be honest.

Anyway. 5th Ward Weebie, 7th Ward Soldier, 5th Ward Boyz, 50-50 Twin and UNLV. What's the UNLV album called um, Mac Malph Calio or something, what's that like?

50/50 twin's from houston, he's a ccc member.

with the south totally blowing up you can get shit like swishahouse and og ron c mixtapes here and shitty no-names from memphis but new orleans is like invisible except for cash money/former cash money/no limit/former no limit and a few okay bounce compilations that i buy right away but can't really get into.

do 'rock' critics (outside of ILM, and.. europe) really pay more attention to dance synth nonsense than they do to any other 'maligned'/ignored southern rap subset?

Bun B may be the greatest rapper of all time.