Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, Eve's here. I know you're ready to get
Speaker 1: into this episode, but really quick. We have been loving
Speaker 1: connecting with y'all over black storytelling, and if you've really
Speaker 1: been loving the show, then we would really appreciate it
Speaker 1: if you would leave us a rating and review, subscribe
Speaker 1: to the show, and share it with your friends. Thanks y'all.
Speaker 1: Now time for the episode. On Theme is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and fair Weather Friends Media.
Speaker 2: Eves, tell me you're from the South without telling me
Speaker 2: you're from the South, I spit.
Speaker 1: My adolescence dancing to crunk music and snap music.
Speaker 2: True, that works, But to be fair, those Johns were
Speaker 2: popping everywhere in the US in the early adds.
Speaker 1: You're right, But because they were born in the South
Speaker 1: and they were under the banner of Southern hip hop,
Speaker 1: it felt like it was a quintessential part of the
Speaker 1: black Southern experience at the time.
Speaker 2: Cuche And you.
Speaker 3: Know what, Katie, I missed that music.
Speaker 1: And I don't just mean in a nostalgic I have
Speaker 1: fond memories attached to it kind of way. I mean
Speaker 1: I miss the energy, I miss the playful, miss the
Speaker 1: organized chaos and the joy of it all. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: just easy to want things to be like they used
Speaker 1: to be. But for the brief and delightful time that
Speaker 1: Crunk and Snap were in the limelight, hip hop felt
Speaker 1: so bright, and now I can't help but feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of that light has faded.
Speaker 2: Today's episode Survival of the crunkas.
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna do a little exercise. Okay, close
Speaker 1: your eyes. Now, imagine yourself as a teenager, say thirteen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're in a friend's living room on a summer weekend. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: her mother has graciously let four other girls stay over
Speaker 1: for a sleepover, and y'all have already eaten dinner, plus
Speaker 1: the obligatory post dinner snack of hot Cheetos and Sprite Remix.
Speaker 1: You've already changed into your pajamas, you've made prank calls
Speaker 1: from the house phone, and you've watched reruns on UPN
Speaker 1: and you're a little spent because you've just finished playing
Speaker 1: about six rounds of Hood Rules UNO. But the night
Speaker 1: is still young, and y'all decide that it's time to crank.
Speaker 3: Some music up.
Speaker 1: It's the mid two thousands and y'all want to dance,
Speaker 1: so of course it's going to be some snap music.
Speaker 1: Y'all take a vote and your choice wins.
Speaker 3: But what is it?
Speaker 1: What song are you playing from the six disc? Seedy Changer, so.
Speaker 2: Jo boy O, Fitness ho, watch me a row? Why
Speaker 2: speak creat Day?
Speaker 3: That's a good choice. Good choice.
Speaker 1: So snap music was actually a child of crunk, which
Speaker 1: grew out of the party life. It's origins lie in
Speaker 1: nightclubs and Miami bass music, and it's made to get
Speaker 1: you hype.
Speaker 2: In other words, the perfect fight in music.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, if you want to put it like that,
Speaker 1: and the lyrics definitely encourage wreaking havoc from time to time.
Speaker 1: See three six Mafias Tear the Club Up, an early
Speaker 1: entry in the genre, Our.
Speaker 2: Little Scrappy is No Problem, in which he says you
Speaker 2: can get crunk in the club, roll with your hood,
Speaker 2: get stomped in the club.
Speaker 1: Yeah. A lot of that enthusiastic energy and adrenaline did
Speaker 1: work itself out in the music in some aggressive lyrics,
Speaker 1: but hey, they were still party songs, exciting beats and
Speaker 1: call and response, a lot of vibes that would have
Speaker 1: you bouncing your shoulders and sweating with their dancing partner.
Speaker 1: Despite the violence that the songs were nodding too, and.
Speaker 2: Some fites did pop off around these songs. But crunk
Speaker 2: music was also a mainstay in more wholesome settings like
Speaker 2: gray school dances and talent shows.
Speaker 1: I mean, some of these songs were literally telling you
Speaker 1: to dance and how to do it. Get Low a
Speaker 1: song that at our tender age we absolutely should not
Speaker 1: have been listening to. But Little John and the East
Speaker 1: Side Boys and the Yin Yank Twins were telling us
Speaker 1: to drop that, shake it fast, pop it to the
Speaker 1: left and the right, back it up and then wiggle
Speaker 1: with it. Simple, clear instructions, so easy your grandma could
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: Okay, And now that I think about it, it's giving WOBBLESI.
Speaker 1: Hey, good enough for the radio, good enough for the
Speaker 1: line dance at the family cookout.
Speaker 2: That's a stretch. That's a stretch, but the points dance.
Speaker 1: The fact is krunk had gotten really popular by the
Speaker 1: early to mid two thousands. That simplicity, those repetitive lyrics,
Speaker 1: the energetic vocals that called to release energy through the
Speaker 1: body through movement and action in one way or the other,
Speaker 1: was hitting a nerve with the people. Krunk had a
Speaker 1: plethora of hits with songs like bone Crushers, Never Scared
Speaker 1: Crime Mobs, Knuck if You Buck, and get some crunking
Speaker 1: System by Trilville and Pastor Troy, and it was getting
Speaker 1: cross genre play with artists like Usher and Sierra.
Speaker 2: And Little John was truly the king of krunk. He
Speaker 2: produced so many of these songs.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and the word krunk was in all but one
Speaker 1: of his album titles. He fully embraced the impact of
Speaker 1: his crunk legacy. And if it weren't for Little John
Speaker 1: and the other artists who made krunk a mainstream success,
Speaker 1: Snap music wouldn't have been able to ride in on
Speaker 1: its coattails, even though the Yin Yang Twins were super
Speaker 1: associated with crunk music. In a twenty twenty one interview
Speaker 1: with Sean Press, Cain said that they made strip club music,
Speaker 1: not crunk music. This was d Rock's response to Sean
Speaker 1: Press saying the world thought of their music as crunk.
Speaker 2: It's all adrenaline.
Speaker 3: So it was a very specific moment in time when
Speaker 3: that music came out.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of fun memories of it because
Speaker 1: it was such a hype period of time. It was
Speaker 1: a period of time wherever it was clearly having a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Yeah, there was a lot of adrenaline.
Speaker 1: I think adrenaline is a really good way to put
Speaker 1: it in That's something that I immediately think of because
Speaker 1: it's about being in the club, it's about dancing together,
Speaker 1: it's about getting buck Like there's just so much energy
Speaker 1: in life, in the lyrics, in the production of the songs,
Speaker 1: and in what they were calling you to do in
Speaker 1: the songs. And I don't know if I have an
Speaker 1: answer to it or if I can put my finger
Speaker 1: on it, but like, what is it that we needed
Speaker 1: that for in that moment?
Speaker 3: Why was that music so popular? Do you have any
Speaker 3: ideas well?
Speaker 2: I think the adrenaline comes from the fact that it
Speaker 2: was like about togetherness in a way, like the songs
Speaker 2: when they come on, you know, people rush into the
Speaker 2: dance floor, Like if you drinking your sprite and you
Speaker 2: hear that beat drive you write it like everybody does it,
Speaker 2: so it's like a group thing, you know, and like
Speaker 2: you're bouncing off the energy of somebody else. So you know,
Speaker 2: if you knuck it in bucket or ready to fight
Speaker 2: so am right, you know what I'm saying, Or you know,
Speaker 2: if you ain't never scared, I ain't never scared either.
Speaker 2: So it's like that energy that you're feeding off of
Speaker 2: with the people that you're with, even if you don't
Speaker 2: know them. They could be strangers like I ain't never scared.
Speaker 2: I ain't never scared. And also like there are groups
Speaker 2: of people singing these songs right like Lil John and
Speaker 2: the East Side Boys, Yingang Twins. You look at the
Speaker 2: music videos like they're all you know, at the skating
Speaker 2: rink or at the club or just in a parking lot,
Speaker 2: just all together, and it's kind of like maybe there's
Speaker 2: one main person, but they with they crew, they would
Speaker 2: they click or whatever. It wasn't like, oh I'm the star,
Speaker 2: like get away from me. Like they was in the trenches.
Speaker 2: They was on Cascade Row, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: And especially like because Atlanta I think was like leading
Speaker 2: it Atlanta supremacy. You're just down to earth making music
Speaker 2: for the streets. It's fun. We're gonna get these dances off,
Speaker 2: we're gonna talk a little bit of shit, and we're
Speaker 2: gonna have a good little time.
Speaker 3: It's like we all having a block party together. Basically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there is also a chaotic energy in that
Speaker 1: period in Atlanta, but in the United States at the time.
Speaker 3: I mean just thinking about the style of dress.
Speaker 1: Extra tall tees, extra long shorts, shades for no reason, bangled.
Speaker 2: Down to earth. You could get that stuff. You get
Speaker 2: a ten back of these shirts for the cheek, for
Speaker 2: the low and you're looking fresh and people are like
Speaker 2: that shit, you.
Speaker 3: Know, and those mesh slippers. Do you remember those mesh
Speaker 3: slippers that everybody used to get. They had a moment
Speaker 3: and I don't blame you.
Speaker 1: Me and my household, I did not see slippers, but
Speaker 1: they approved my point that it was a chaotic time
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. And I think that you know,
Speaker 1: this was post millennium chaos. So I think we were
Speaker 1: kind of moving into these years. We were still having
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. We were still like figuring out
Speaker 1: Internet things. There were just energy coming at us from
Speaker 1: all these different directions.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think very like experimental too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very experimental and very loose, Like that's one
Speaker 1: thing that I get from this period of time, like
Speaker 1: we didn't take ourselves too seriously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think because you know, like the ninety
Speaker 2: nine two thousand, it's like, oh, it's gonna be two thousand,
Speaker 2: We're going to be like in the future people were
Speaker 2: like on their little like Millennium wave like trying to
Speaker 2: be like futuristic in dress. But like by that time,
Speaker 2: I think people were like, Okay, well it's just the
Speaker 2: same old, same all, Like let me throw on these
Speaker 2: tall te's, let me put it on this hat at
Speaker 2: like an impossible angle and like hit the street.
Speaker 3: And it got something air brushed on it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, some ristones are somewhere, whatever the case
Speaker 2: may be. So yeah, I think like we didn't take
Speaker 2: ourselves too seriously, and it showed in the music. It
Speaker 2: showed in like you know, getting beats off of YouTube
Speaker 2: was YouTube grow wherever folks was getting beats.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was it was just going to come up
Speaker 3: when it comes to music and.
Speaker 2: Then just putting it out because like a lot of
Speaker 2: times people would just put it out and it would
Speaker 2: go viral for the time and then that's how people
Speaker 2: heard it, and then that's how it got on the radio.
Speaker 2: The music industry really like pushing this in the beginning.
Speaker 2: It was the people pushing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was a grassroots, like really collective effort to like
Speaker 1: make this music spread and it did.
Speaker 2: Yeh.
Speaker 3: A testament to.
Speaker 1: As much as as many issues as we might have
Speaker 1: with the music. Now you know, it was hot Hot,
Speaker 1: it was snap music. It was different. Yes, it was
Speaker 1: a successor to krunk. Still fun, still made to get
Speaker 1: you hype, still holy southern, Still more about the style
Speaker 1: than the substance. But it was a little more lighthearted
Speaker 1: than crunk, A little sillier.
Speaker 2: I mean the genre is home to Laffy Taffy, a
Speaker 2: Snap classic. Not the most serious of songs.
Speaker 1: Okay, a lot sillier. The artists moved on from tearing
Speaker 1: up clubs to tearing up the dance floor. Some songs
Speaker 1: had actual snaps in the beats. Do It Do It
Speaker 1: Pull Palace by Bhi with k raph and Little John Bunny,
Speaker 1: Hot by get Rich Click. We were squarely in the
Speaker 1: mid two thousands, paying per text message and downloading frame towns.
Speaker 3: It was a struggle, wasn't it putting?
Speaker 1: I think they like me and walk it out on
Speaker 1: our iPods, uploading low resolution videos of synchronized dances with
Speaker 1: our friends to YouTube.
Speaker 2: Don't talk down on it like that, like you weren't
Speaker 2: bumping those two two.
Speaker 3: Oh girl, me and everybody else.
Speaker 1: Snap music successes were coming out of Atlanta, Left and right.
Speaker 1: Many Snap songs were topping the Billboard charts. Groups like
Speaker 1: Dem Franchise Boys and Defoel were becoming Snap superstars, and
Speaker 1: some Southern hip hop ogs like the Yin Yang Twins
Speaker 1: and Little John were still in the game.
Speaker 2: Can't forget tea Pains, Buy You a Drink? All the
Speaker 2: kids and grown ups fell in love with that song.
Speaker 2: It was the perfect mix of R and B and snap,
Speaker 2: and he actually talked about snapping in it from the
Speaker 2: very beginning of the song, even in the second part
Speaker 2: of the title, Shoddy Snap.
Speaker 3: Katie, what do you think was up with those snaps?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Why did we like them so much?
Speaker 2: Then? You know, I think it just it was like
Speaker 2: the hoods. I am big pentameter, if you will, all right,
Speaker 2: get us together, keeping each other on beat. Okay, we
Speaker 2: were moving in unison.
Speaker 1: It's basically the two thousand version of a scat Okay okay.
Speaker 2: Yes, we were taking that collective memory h from our
Speaker 2: ancestors and.
Speaker 1: Transforming it, transforming it, bringing it into the future.
Speaker 2: Mutating it was evolving. It was the natural course of history.
Speaker 1: Probably also has something to do with all the sense
Speaker 1: that was involved in the music, because I'm sure there
Speaker 1: were some technical aspects to it as well, but I
Speaker 1: appreciated those snaps. And Soldier Boy, as we all know,
Speaker 1: was a phenomenon and had a lot of snaps in
Speaker 1: his songs too. There's no doubt that Soljia had a
Speaker 1: huge influence on the trajectory of hip hop because of
Speaker 1: how he incorporated the Internet in his music. By his
Speaker 1: own words in his own tweets, he has said that
Speaker 1: he was quote ahead of his time. I don't disagree
Speaker 1: with the sentiment, but I would amend that to say
Speaker 1: that he was right on time. The music industry was
Speaker 1: shifting strategies because it realized that music would soon rely
Speaker 1: heavily on digital platforms. People were file sharing and using
Speaker 1: social media more, and Soldier Boy capitalized on that to
Speaker 1: get more downloads and more notoriety. He would change the
Speaker 1: name of Crank That to the names of other popular
Speaker 1: songs and peer to peer platforms, and he leaked his
Speaker 1: songs on MySpace. Here he is in a Billboard interview
Speaker 1: with Hillary Crosley that he did when he was seventeen
Speaker 1: years old, talking about his first album.
Speaker 3: Well made you guys, make your album title a website.
Speaker 4: Before on my record deal, I got my success through
Speaker 4: the internet, like I had too many hits on the
Speaker 4: site before My record. Deal is if I name my
Speaker 4: alms what tim dot com, it's gonna be like the website.
Speaker 4: So the website gonna be like the CD, like that,
Speaker 4: back and forth.
Speaker 1: At the time we were recording this the Crank. That
Speaker 1: music video has five hundred and sixty eight million views
Speaker 1: on YouTube. It was his first single and it set
Speaker 1: the stage for a Snap music dance epidemic. There were
Speaker 1: dances that went along with songs before think of the Chickenhead,
Speaker 1: but regular folks started uploading their own videos of soldiers
Speaker 1: dances to YouTube.
Speaker 3: YouTube was becoming.
Speaker 1: A place where lay people could get a lot of
Speaker 1: attention and artists could promote their brands with a bunch
Speaker 1: of success. The TikTok dance crazes, the rappers who made
Speaker 1: their lanes on SoundCloud, the strategic use of social media
Speaker 1: to amplify your work and bring fans into the fold.
Speaker 1: That all has some precedent in Soldier Boys work in
Speaker 1: the mid two thousands. All Snap music was the soundtrack
Speaker 1: for all of this, So even the folks who don't
Speaker 1: care for it can't deny its deep imprint on the
Speaker 1: music industry. A lot of folks were hating on Snap music, though,
Speaker 1: including Soldiers Music, saying they were killing hip hop. I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's like when any new music that the
Speaker 1: kids are into comes around, and Snap music it came
Speaker 1: with the whole host of new fingle technology that the
Speaker 1: old heads and the hip hop purists weren't used to
Speaker 1: being associated with real hip hop.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember some folks like calling a ringtone rab
Speaker 2: really trying to play it mm.
Speaker 1: Hmm, And just hearing that phrase makes me feel old,
Speaker 1: like it's something like still saying tape instead of records, listening.
Speaker 2: To that terrible rap again, get off my patch?
Speaker 3: And then and now.
Speaker 1: The Snap era isn't regarded super highly in the hip
Speaker 1: hop canon. It was a star that burned brightly but
Speaker 1: died pretty quickly. People recognize its meteoric rise, how much
Speaker 1: of a fun and unique time it was, how the
Speaker 1: artists who did snap music did it well. I would
Speaker 1: say it's artistry hasn't gotten much acclaim though, but it
Speaker 1: has been noted as a game changing phase between krunk
Speaker 1: and traps rise to the mainstream and all the darker
Speaker 1: Southern hip hop that was to come next. In a
Speaker 1: wild interview that the King Yang Twins did on Hot
Speaker 1: one O seven point one in Memphis in the two thousands,
Speaker 1: Cain said that he didn't really like the party music
Speaker 1: that they made. I ain't really fallen on a club
Speaker 1: of music we make, but I ain't one of it.
Speaker 1: It ain't it ain't really talking about n okay. And
Speaker 1: that's the flip side of this coin. It was a
Speaker 1: fun moment in hip hop, but crunk and snap music
Speaker 1: were good time friends.
Speaker 2: Snap music had such an impact. People were playing it
Speaker 2: all the time, Like you said, people were uploading their
Speaker 2: renditions of the dances and the songs to YouTube just
Speaker 2: because just for funzies, and like I imagine seeing your
Speaker 2: art everywhere. But like, knowing these nogoods was in three
Speaker 2: sixty deals, like I would be like, I don't, I
Speaker 2: don't like it, you know what I'm saying. Like if
Speaker 2: you made some art and you didn't get paid the
Speaker 2: amount you should have been like the hood loves you,
Speaker 2: but the hood love ain't gonna pay those bills. And
Speaker 2: so I could see them not like feeling a way
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: In that regard, you're talking about the artists who had
Speaker 1: Snap songs, who didn't necessarily make it big or make
Speaker 1: a lot of money from them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the Yiang twins, I can see them signing
Speaker 2: a bad deal and not getting their worth monetarily, and
Speaker 2: so I can see them like being like, oh, I
Speaker 2: don't like that. If you own your masters, if you
Speaker 2: were getting one hundred percent of them checks, I'm sure
Speaker 2: you would love that music. You'd be like playing some
Speaker 2: more and play some more. But I can see not
Speaker 2: liking it or like kind of be wanting to separate
Speaker 2: yourself from that like silly, youthful time. When you're older
Speaker 2: money ain't getting no money off of it until you
Speaker 2: have grown as a person and an artist, right, I
Speaker 2: would think that it was more like an economic.
Speaker 1: Based on the way that they said it in that interview.
Speaker 1: It was in real time, so they were saying this
Speaker 1: at the same time they were putting music out out
Speaker 1: that would be considered part of that era. But the
Speaker 1: context of that conversation made it seem like there was
Speaker 1: actually something about the substance and what the messages that
Speaker 1: they were actually delivering to people in those songs wasn't
Speaker 1: their favorite. And that's understandable because we know a lot
Speaker 1: of times artists do things to make money because they
Speaker 1: have to sustain themselves too, but also like they have
Speaker 1: arranged within their artistry, some of which may include conscious
Speaker 1: things and some of it may include things that don't
Speaker 1: take that much thinking about. And when they were talking
Speaker 1: about it in that interview it was couch and another conversation,
Speaker 1: they were like, I think they were a little drunk
Speaker 1: or high or something, to be fair, but whatever the
Speaker 1: mood was, they were still you know, saying what they
Speaker 1: were saying, and they were just talking about how much
Speaker 1: they care about the kids and how important the kids are,
Speaker 1: and like raising them upright and them getting an education
Speaker 1: was okay. So some part of it really did seem
Speaker 1: like them saying, this music is cool. I'm glad that
Speaker 1: it's resonating with the people. But it didn't seem like
Speaker 1: it's what they wanted to be defined as, and they
Speaker 1: didn't want people to see it as the limits of
Speaker 1: their artistry, Like that wasn't the boundaries of what they
Speaker 1: could actually do and the things that they could actually
Speaker 1: say in their work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think people often like have this
Speaker 2: like false economy, like either you listen to snap music
Speaker 2: or you focus on your education, like you were our
Speaker 2: salutatorian and were snapping with the rest of us. So
Speaker 2: you know, so it's like, I mean, don't take yourself
Speaker 2: too seriously think that you are like the reason for
Speaker 2: the high school dropout rates.
Speaker 3: R like no, fair, fair point.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: So do you think that snap music and crunk music
Speaker 1: is something that artists should be proud of, like an
Speaker 1: era they should look back on with pride?
Speaker 2: Well, I know mister Soljia does.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he's still talking about it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but yeah, I mean I do. It was
Speaker 2: an era. It was something that was created organically and
Speaker 2: it was fun. And people still be listening to songs.
Speaker 2: I mean people still be swags a white people. Oh yes,
Speaker 2: it still gets trying to get going on swag surfing.
Speaker 2: Recently they couldn't do it a little. Still, it's not
Speaker 2: much to it, but you know, it's still alive. It's
Speaker 2: still here oftentimes you know, at arena's or you know
Speaker 2: the high school football game, high school basketball music festival. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so like it's still there. So, I I mean, if
Speaker 2: I was a part of it, if I had my
Speaker 2: snaphand crunk hits, I'd be like, yeah, I did my
Speaker 2: big one.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting too, because like one Snap song was
Speaker 1: just one of so many others that brought people together
Speaker 1: versus now when you hear swagsurfing and you see the
Speaker 1: crowd like locking arms or like moving in.
Speaker 3: Synchrony, that's it. That's the end of it.
Speaker 1: After that, we all nod in our hands on our
Speaker 1: own back on our phones or something like that. So
Speaker 1: it's like a lot more isolated to see that kind
Speaker 1: of togetherness through song and like public spaces where there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Bring back the pool Palace, bring back the poole palates.
Speaker 2: I remember doing that escap zone one night how recently
Speaker 2: middle school? Okay, so it was like you know everyone
Speaker 2: about skates, Yeah, oh yeah, of course, club up. I
Speaker 2: went and did the pool Palace all night, legs work
Speaker 2: killing me the I'm gonna do that tonight as my workout.
Speaker 1: Actually, right, all the people want to do squads, Now,
Speaker 1: why would you do that if you could do the
Speaker 1: pool Palace. So do you think that Snap and Crunk
Speaker 1: have aged well or like, do you think that they
Speaker 1: will age well into the future? Will they be John
Speaker 1: runs that we listened to and we're like, yeah, that
Speaker 1: was that was a good time. That was good artistry.
Speaker 1: And the people deserve to listen to it for years
Speaker 1: to come.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so, because unfortunately we are the adults
Speaker 2: now and so unfortunately, girl, I hate it here take
Speaker 2: me back. But you know, when you're at the plane,
Speaker 2: our oldies are oldies. Gonna include some Snap and crunk,
Speaker 2: you're right, like it or not. It ain't gonna be
Speaker 2: all teddy pinograss some, but it's gonna be a little
Speaker 2: John and the East Side Boys as well.
Speaker 1: And mostly we're just gonna be leaning with him, rocking
Speaker 1: with laughing, taffying around. Yeah, well, at least it'll be fun.
Speaker 1: In the fifteen plus years since the US fell out
Speaker 1: of love with Snap music, mainstream hip hop has definitely
Speaker 1: took a turn toward the dark. Some folks would say
Speaker 1: that the Snap era was a dark time in hip
Speaker 1: hop history that were better off just looking at it
Speaker 1: as a distinct period in a genre that is relatively
Speaker 1: new and constantly evolving. But I sorely missed that goofy,
Speaker 1: care free energy of the era, that hard one but
Speaker 1: rightful joy that was infused in the high hats and
Speaker 1: the lively dances. And it wasn't like everything was all
Speaker 1: sunshine and rainbows. The song still had a sprinkle of foolishness,
Speaker 1: a dash of objectification, a pinch of peacocking, but there
Speaker 1: was a release. Some burdens were taken off of our
Speaker 1: shoulders so we could move them freely. Mainstream hip hop
Speaker 1: kind of moved on to killing, stealing, and thrilling, heavy
Speaker 1: on the making money moves, a lot of depressants and depression.
Speaker 1: We definitely got out of our bodies and into the
Speaker 1: recesses of our minds. There's a ton of wrap out
Speaker 1: there that wasn't and isn't on this wave. But the
Speaker 1: things that grow chart get radio rotation. Not too much
Speaker 1: happy go lucky out there. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like the Drakes, Futures, Kanye, and many folks who've
Speaker 2: come in their wake. I do think we see a
Speaker 2: little bit of that humor and lightheartedness in the women
Speaker 2: rappers like City Girls, Megan Thee, Stallion, Big Lotto, Cardi, Nikki.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 1: Some attitude, some happiness or at least contentment, and some
Speaker 1: dance routines, a little color, a little life.
Speaker 3: But when I look at.
Speaker 1: Mainstream hip hop generally and say it's adrenaline, nah, it's
Speaker 1: a downward energy, not an upward. One, it seems like
Speaker 1: crunk and snap music flourished in the two thousands because one,
Speaker 1: every sound has its moment. Two burgeoning technologies and internet
Speaker 1: platforms and technologies made simple, flashy songs valuable. Three the
Speaker 1: creators were skilled and it was their time. Four it
Speaker 1: came out of Atlanta, the star that a lot of
Speaker 1: hip hop revolves around. And five it's cool, it's fun,
Speaker 1: and it's soft. In a quote in a two thousand
Speaker 1: and six article in the UK's Independent, Febo of DFOL
Speaker 1: said this, if you clap your hands and get crunk
Speaker 1: and stuff, you're gonna get sweaty, right. But there's always
Speaker 1: that player on the wall that just got that little
Speaker 1: step that he do all the time, and he snapping
Speaker 1: his fingers with it, and he looks so cool with it.
Speaker 1: That's who a female is going home with.
Speaker 2: Ah wise words from philosopher Fabo.
Speaker 3: He had us in the first half.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, but baby, we needed a break, a course correction,
Speaker 1: a reaction to all that hard action that had come before,
Speaker 1: the political rap, the gangster rap. And once we got
Speaker 1: that high energy out through krunk, we wanted to balance
Speaker 1: things out. And now the mood is cynical, sad, introspective, serious,
Speaker 1: More rappers talking about mental health. Maybe they're just talking
Speaker 1: about it differently than they were before, or maybe they're
Speaker 1: just more open to talking about their struggles in a
Speaker 1: more straightforward way. But in totality, the outlook is pretty blue.
Speaker 1: Part of it seems like a natural switchback in the
Speaker 1: long term progression of hip hop music, and part of
Speaker 1: it is that the US is having a mental health reckoning.
Speaker 1: The number of people getting mental health treatment has increased
Speaker 1: significantly since the early two thousands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the music that we listen to is
Speaker 2: a reflection of what is going on in society. And
Speaker 2: so I think krunk and snap music would be a
Speaker 2: little out of place now because like this shit is
Speaker 2: not sweet, right, So we see some records that are like, oh,
Speaker 2: like this is fun, you know, like for the girls,
Speaker 2: you know, but I think the depressed rap it also
Speaker 2: has its place because she's depressing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I guess I think when you say shit
Speaker 1: is not sweet, it's like it never was, and it
Speaker 1: definitely wasn't then too.
Speaker 2: I don't think we have the consciousness to know that.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's where I was going with this is
Speaker 1: because what I was going to say, is that it's
Speaker 1: just different ways of processing, where processing before was ignoring
Speaker 1: and processing now is like actually like confronting the thing
Speaker 1: and talking about it.
Speaker 2: So we were ignoring it because I guess it was
Speaker 2: like the recession in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3: I don't think as a whole we were ignoring it.
Speaker 1: I'm just specifically referring to the way it was coming
Speaker 1: out through Krunk music and Snap music. Yeah, because we
Speaker 1: weren't really talking about conscious things, or we weren't talking
Speaker 1: about mental health.
Speaker 2: It was just like it was we didn't have the
Speaker 2: language then to talk about mental health.
Speaker 1: But I think when people talk about it, when rappers
Speaker 1: talk about it today, it's not oh, I'm going to
Speaker 1: therapy and I'm saying this, it's no like I'm sad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we had the language to say that before.
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like in the Krunk I mean, toxic
Speaker 2: masculinity is still here in Wild Girl, but it was
Speaker 2: more of a masculine like saying you're sad. I feel
Speaker 2: like Drake brought that on. Drake comes on a little
Speaker 2: bit after he Mad It had his first album, what
Speaker 2: like two thousand and nine, mm hm, So I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we could have, but then you was gonna get joned
Speaker 2: and he was gonna be a little bitch. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: no one's gonna think you were cool anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I appreciate both ways because, like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: I used the word soft because there was a softness
Speaker 1: in the Crunk and the Snap era, even though it
Speaker 1: was masculine, because it was so tactile, because it was
Speaker 1: about movement so much, because it was about sharing, because
Speaker 1: it was about like creating and containing energy in these
Speaker 1: spaces with other black people and with people at home.
Speaker 3: Because it's became a mainstream success. So yeah, it's interesting
Speaker 3: to see.
Speaker 1: The ways that probably ideas around masculinity and around how
Speaker 1: people chose to express themselves or like release energy came about.
Speaker 1: But on a lighter note, anything can come back around.
Speaker 2: So maybe sometime in the future we'll call for a
Speaker 2: Krunk or Snap revival.
Speaker 1: Maybe rapper Deuce's song Crunk Ain't Dead got some attention
Speaker 1: a few years ago, But whether the pendulum will swing
Speaker 1: back in that direction, only time will tell.
Speaker 2: Now it's time for roll credits, the segment where we
Speaker 2: give credit to a person, place, or thing that we
Speaker 2: encounter during the week. Eves who are what would you
Speaker 2: like to give credit to today?
Speaker 1: I think I'd like to give credit to critical thinking,
Speaker 1: just because I think a lot of times people can
Speaker 1: do things like be ignorant on purpose, they weaponize their ignorance,
Speaker 1: have a lack of empathy, and choose to not use
Speaker 1: the knowledge that they do have, choose to not integrated.
Speaker 2: Grow are you taking a shot and you would give
Speaker 2: me dead?
Speaker 1: And my motherfucker because I'm talking to you contact. This
Speaker 1: isn't anything coded, it isn't about anything specific. It's just
Speaker 1: that I've been like reading and I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of the time, just.
Speaker 3: Like why why are people like this?
Speaker 1: You know? So it's not like I'm saying I have
Speaker 1: no flaws and no faults, but I appreciate, you know,
Speaker 1: being able to like think critically about things and change
Speaker 1: my mind. And so this week I wanted to give
Speaker 1: credit to critical thinking because I think it's an important
Speaker 1: skill to have that I'm grateful that I was in
Speaker 1: beute with from an early age, Like it was something
Speaker 1: that was like, this is critical thinking, and this is
Speaker 1: how you do it for me in my life. And
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for all of my teachers who did instill
Speaker 1: that value in me and the importance of it, because
Speaker 1: not everybody gets that, and that's not always a fault
Speaker 1: of their own. It's like, you know, what are the
Speaker 1: communities that are around us, How are they helping us think?
Speaker 1: You know? What are ways in which we're not being
Speaker 1: educated by the people who are responsible for it. How
Speaker 1: are we being taught to the test a lot of
Speaker 1: the times? How are people purposefully providing misinformation? Not giving
Speaker 1: you access to certain things? So there are so many
Speaker 1: factors to it that we don't have to go into here.
Speaker 1: But it's an important skill to have, and I want
Speaker 1: to make sure that I'm always using it in my
Speaker 1: life too.
Speaker 2: Thank Critically, y'all, I would like to give credit to
Speaker 2: researchers who have written down their research and shared it
Speaker 2: with the public. I turned in the manuscript of my
Speaker 2: book this morning, and there were a lot of people
Speaker 2: who's research they just shared with me, research that is
Speaker 2: available in the archives, and it was really helpful to
Speaker 2: see what people before me had done, who they talked to, like,
Speaker 2: what books they read. So I'm grateful for them.
Speaker 1: I imagine it would be nice to have people who
Speaker 1: so freely share too, and don't try to get keep now.
Speaker 2: Oh fuck j store.
Speaker 3: Oh we can go down a list for all the journals.
Speaker 2: Baby fuck that, but a bitch beginning them log ins
Speaker 2: and I go to work. But yeah, they should make
Speaker 2: those available, like why you got to be associated with
Speaker 2: a university, like a specific university.
Speaker 1: You have to go through the seven layers of hell
Speaker 1: to get into some of those articles.
Speaker 2: I know, seriously, everybody I meet, are you in college?
Speaker 2: What's your password? I ain't gonna do nothing funny. I'm
Speaker 2: just trying to get these journals because they do make
Speaker 2: it so hard. But one day we'll be free. There
Speaker 2: will be a free jay store one day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some people are working on it. Thank you, open
Speaker 1: source folks. We'll see you next episode.
Speaker 3: Bye y'all, bye.
Speaker 1: On Scene is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by Eves Jeffco and Katie Mitchell.
Speaker 1: It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison. Follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at on Themeshow. You can also send us
Speaker 1: an email at hello at on Theme dot show. Head
Speaker 1: to on Themet Show to check out the show notes
Speaker 1: for episodes. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.