The South Got Something To Say: A Celebration Of Southern Rap (2010-2014)
At the 1995 Source Awards, André 3000 issued a proclamation, or a prophecy: "The South got something to say." Inspired by his words, this list represents some of the most impactful songs, albums and mixtapes by Southern rappers. It was assembled by a team of Southern critics, scholars and writers representing the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Maryland, Mississippi, Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana and Virginia.
We offer this list not as an authoritative canon but as an enthusiastic celebration that recenters the South's role as a creative center of hip-hop and presents the region for all that it has been and given to us.
2010
To see someone New Orleans bounce is to witness a miracle of physics — the way the booty seems to dislocate from the body is pure poetry in motion. Every miracle (if you follow the gospel anyway) needs a song that testifies to it, and so we have Big Freedia's "Azz Everywhere," the raunchy anthem that's become a staple of the subgenre. Its construction is that of traditional bounce music: Samples abound, as do call-and-response-style lines that sound improvised even in their recorded forms. Forget an earworm; try sitting still when those drums kick in. To quote the queen herself, "it will pull asses of the masses together."
Standing on the shoulders of Katey Red, a drag artist who began queering bounce music in the '90s, Freedia is the style's most visible proponent. Their vibrant, buoyant world is one where binaries go to die; gender constructs are a suggestion at best, as asses, the great unifier, come to the front (and the top). "Azz Everywhere" embodies the liberative, singular spirit that makes this music capable of filling dance floors in and outside of New Orleans. Note that Freedia isn't just talk either — as she fires off demands of "toot it up" and "hands on your ankles," know that she, too, can bounce with the best of them. —Briana Younger
found me as I was preparing my materials for tenure at Vassar College. My unhealthy plan was to spend the entire week writing, listening to Al Green and only drinking water. I'd heard from one of my friends back home that there was a dude named Big K.R.I.T. from Meridian, which was right down the highway from Grandmama's house in Forest, who sounded like a more lyrical Pimp C. Friends in New York kept asking me why K.R.I.T. sounded so mad. I could maybe hear anger in "Viktorious," but more than that, I heard a precise acceptance and proclamation of Mississippi's might. For five days, "Hometown Hero," "Children of the World," "Viktorious," "Voices," and especially "Something" got me over. Those songs helped me reconcile what Baldwin called my "first acts" as a child growing up in Mississippi to my "first.
