Like many in my age cohort, much of my coming of age was during the Dirty South’s takeover of hip-hop, and I like my friends felt the influence. I remember being a high school freshman when Cash Money was “takin’ over for the ‘99 and the 2000” and hearing “Back That Ass Up” at homecoming. OutKast, Eightball & MJG, Three 6 Mafia, and No Limit Soldiers kept spins in the soundtrack to my life. And of course you can’t mention the South without Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz.
My first exposure to Lil Jon was through the So So Def Bass All Star CDs of the late 90s. He had a few jams on them, but honestly I wasn’t checking for them at the time. It wasn’t until high school when I started hearing crunk music on the airways was I hooked. Even though I was in Michigan you couldn’t go to a party or tune in to the radio without hearing a Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz song or Lil Jon’s signature production on a variety of other tunes. I had to make a map to pay homage.
The second track of Lil’ Jon & the East Side Boyz’ fourth album Kings of Crunk was “Throw it Up,” which embodied his influence on the rest of the game. Before the song starts, Lil Jon tells the listener to throw up their hood and lists the cities and states that needed to “represent”. Eight states (Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia, North & South Carolina, Louisiana—unsurprisingly all in the South) and eight American major cities (Indianapolis, Saint Louis, Jacksonville, Detroit, Washington, DC, Dallas, Houston, Oakland (the Bay)) are shouted out in the song. Of course we would get extra hype when Detroit was shouted out.
Similar to the Lupe map, “Throw it Up” will be my reference point for future maps of songs that show cities and states love. I wonder which ones will have more shout outs than “Throw it Up.”
SOURCES:
-ESRI Data and Maps [Download]. (2013) Redlands, CA: ESRI [October, 2014]
-Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, “Throw it Up.” From the Album Kings of Crunk (2002)
Rap GEO 