The South Got Something To Say: A Celebration Of Southern Rap (2000-2004)
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.
2000
Trina dropped her debut album, Da Baddest B****, in March 2000 on the historic Slip-N-Slide Records, marking her official foray into the male-dominated hip-hop industry. Capitalizing on her appearance on Trick Daddy's "Nann N****," Trina offered up a showcase of slick and explicit lyrics that put her in dialogue with New York's Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown. But Trina injected a distinct Southern flavor into her rhymes; tracks like the album's title single had an aggressive edge, and she didn't shy away from rapping about her sexual appetite and the grand life she lived in Miami. On "Pull Over," she proved capable of continuing her own momentum with catchy, unforgettable bars just like the chorus. Da Baddest B****, equally as brash as it is sexy, would go on to be the blueprint for female rappers for years to come — at present, acts like the City Girls and Megan Thee Stallion are extensions of her legacy, reminiscent of Trina's unflinchingly shameless style. Raw and assertive, Da Baddest B**** is a rallying cry for women to embrace their sexual selves. —Robyn Mowatt
At the time of its release, the most popular version of this song used the melody from Disney's 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to recognize twerking as labor and inspire a positive attitude in the dancers of Atlanta's strip clubs. While Disney's litigiousness is likely to blame for this version's absence from the official record, it is delightfully discordant to hear the Ying Yang Twins' lyrics about farting pussies over the wholesome if exploitative ones of a snow-white princess who has broken into a house and entreated the animals and birds present to whistle as she orders them around and they do most of the labor. In some ways, the Ying Yang Twins offer a more progressive gender and labor vision than their fairytale inspiration, narrating some of the resistance practices of the club's various dancers — women who are skilled, don't play and demand top dollar.
"Whistle While You Twurk" is an ethnography of the Atlanta strip club scene, its people, practices and places, that prefigures the stylized and obligatory slow-motion shots of the space that would come to characterize at least one scene in many mainstream rap videos in the 2000s. It is the essential link from Florida to Texas, 2 Live Crew to Megan Thee Stallion, coming right on the heels of the transformative stop in between the two: Louisiana's Juvenile. On the South's twerk anthems, like this one and Ying Yang Twins' catalog's worth of others constructed in its image, we find the engines of pleasure, fantasy, capital and crossover. And if we listen on the lower frequencies, we will hear the familiar whistles of the complex intersections of race, sex and labor exploitation that have always operated in the region. —Zandria F. Robinson
Released in June 2000, Three 6 Mafia's fourth studio album, When The Smoke Clears, featured the collective at its creative and physical peak. With this being the group's first offering since its 1997 breakout effort Chapter 2: World, the album was the result of three years of tooling up and polishing its sound via Hypnotized Minds/Prophet Posse compilations (especially January 2000's that featured the hit "") and solo albums from group members and affiliates. Living up to its title, simultaneously introduced underground "Triple 6" to a wider national audience and further established the group's standing with longtime fans, all while the perfect storm of a Southern hip-hop takeover was brewing, making listeners, DJs, radio stations and anyone else with two ears realize that they were key architects in the movement.
