Editor’s note: This segment was rebroadcast on December 25, 2023. Click here for the audio.
Over the years since hip-hop was born in New York, many other cities have accelerated hip-hop’s global success. Memphis, Tennessee is one of them. The city is filled with talented musicians and storytellers who have innovated rap to reflect the city’s history and culture.
Regional dialects, terminology, and specific musical characteristics have always been central as the genre evolved. Zandria Felice Robinson knows that personally. She is a Memphis native, author, and associate professor at Georgetown University.
“The history of a place shapes what we listen to, which shapes how we make music,” she says.
The history of Memphis hip-hop as told by Xandria Felice Robinson
Fundamentals of Memphis Rap and Hip Hop Culture
“Many hip-hop artists in Memphis, and hip-hop culture in general, are descendants of and pay homage to their Mississippi Delta roots. It was a broader group of people who came to Memphis, and they brought with them the sound of the blues, and they brought with them the gospel and the work songs that they used to play in the fields to keep pace and keep time.
“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis in 1968. As hip-hop swept the country in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Memphis still grappled with Dr. King’s assassination. And , there is a new generation of people who have come at a time when the promises of the civil rights movement seem to have never been fulfilled.”
The distinctive sound of Memphis rap
“There’s a lot of sadness in this music. There’s a lot of anger, there’s a lot of darkness. In Memphis hip-hop, there’s a loop of minor-key melodies and a huge number of chants.
“Memphis hip-hop also has a certain beat signature. You’ll often hear sharp snares. You’ll hear hi-hats. Memphis hip-hop artists have a certain kind of signature sound. There’s another aspect: the triplet-like delivery of rhymes and rhythms that can be heard on DJ Zirk’s “Lock Em in da Trunk.”
“The refrain of ‘Lock Em in da Trunk’ comes from a song called ‘Drag Rap’ by The Showboys. This is a bit of a murder ballad, very popular in the mid-century, and born out of the blues tradition. They are especially about murder and revenge. It’s violent and hyperbolic, but that’s kind of the point of that particular tradition. ”
Three 6 Mafia’s seminal album ‘The Most Unknown’
“Memphis rap has its place all over the world. [1990s] But it was Three 6 Mafia’s Most Known Unknown, a mid-2000s album that woke people up to what was really going on in Memphis. Southern hip-hop has long been marginalized by the music industry.
“There was an ongoing conflict between the East Coast and the West Coast, and there was a sense that these outsiders were coming here and destroying what was left of hip-hop’s traditions. There was a widespread perception that he did not have the lyrical IQ or intelligence to succeed.
“What you have to keep in mind at this point is that there’s a Miami bass to Southern hip-hop. It’s got a New Orleans bounce to it. It’s got some gothic, dark music coming out of Memphis. There was a sense that all people wanted to do was dance. These ideas are rooted in a kind of South/North dichotomy that emerged after the Great Migration. And the North, and by extension the West, are also thinking about black power and black resistance.
“You can see a lot of critiques of the rise of Southern hip-hop by East Coast and West Coast artists at the time. Hip-hop’s political edge was being taken away as corporations turned Southerners into representatives of black people. I think there’s still a little bit of an edge there, but you can’t deny the South’s place in hip-hop more broadly.”
Establishing the southern hip hop sound
“Cities in the South have had to work together to build and express their own sounds and build a sound that is fundamentally the sound of the South. Memphis has certainly always carried a bit of a chip on its shoulder. I think it was because the local music industry collapsed for various reasons.
“Stax Records had closed in 1974, and there wasn’t much interest in the city from outside major record labels like there was in places like New Orleans, Atlanta, and Houston. It was a pretty finicky place to do things creatively and innovatively, but we didn’t have access to the resources that other places had.
“This was actually a boom for Memphis because it gave us much more diversity and creativity in our sound. If you look at what the major record labels have come to expect from Atlanta’s sound, a lot of that So there’s a lot to sample in Memphis, and today we’re seeing the manifestation of that creativity.”
Southern hip-hop takes over, but loses its regional character
“When the Southern hip-hop sound starts to be extracted from Southern hip-hop artists, it becomes less regional and more just. This is hip-hop. He has a father from Memphis. Some people may disagree, but Drake is one of the people who embraced and popularized the Memphis sound and the Memphis beat. That’s great for Memphis in many ways, but Drake is a national and international figure. He’s a hip-hop star, and to be fair, he’s going to accept everyone’s culture, so it’s also flattening regional identity.”
The distinctive voices of today’s Memphis rappers
“To achieve the sound of a unique place, one of the few things you have is your own voice. always surprises me.
“These guys have great Memphis voices. They have a special Southern accent that is Memphis and Mississippi Delta integrated. And a lot of the appeal of these artists is the timbre of their voices, It’s in the variation of the phrase, what people are saying about the actual countryside that characterizes them and can tell a lot about a place, from making something out of it. The ingenuity comes through. It’s a hallmark of hip-hop, and it’s what keeps hip-hop culture moving forward.”
The quintessential Boston hip-hop playlist
”Blessed“by Glorilla”
”Lock em in the trunk“Written by DJ Zark”
”Poppin’ My Color“Three 6 Mafia”
”Dem Dallas’ location” by gangstaboo
”hold up hold up hold up“Written by Young Dolph”
Ciku Theuri produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Theuri has also adapted it for the web.
