Although I don’t live there anymore, the city of Detroit will always hold a special place in my heart. I was born in Detroit and it’s where my love for hip-hop and maps begin. I remember learning how to read a map from the Rand McNally in my dad’s glove box and later memorizing the bus route maps that could take me across town as a teenager. Eastside Chedda Boyz, Slum Village, Esham, and D-12 are very much a part of my foundation as a hip-hop fan and participant. Trying my hand at making a city map has been on my list since I began this project. I knew I had to start with Detroit, but I didn’t know how challenging it would be. I’ve been working on and off on this map for a good year now, mostly from analyzing source materials.

THE PROCESS
As with my emcee maps, I set a list of criteria for the map that assisted in giving me some limits and creating something replicable for when I create another city map or if you would like to duplicate the process for your own maps. Here is what I set:

1. Any emcee from the city, and surrounding areas if they reference the city, are fair game.
2. Geographic references can be cited from the lyrics in studio albums, freestyles, battles, mixtapes, etc. In my personal methodology I began with studio albums and mixtapes, then features on other artists’ projects, freestyles, etc.
3. Find 1 unique geographic identifier (street, place, neighborhood…) per emcee. I would later find out how difficult this can be when a significant amount of emcees are all reppin’ the same street (more on that below)
4. Places significant to hip-hop culture in the city, but not called out by an emcee, can also be added to the map.

THE MAP
I mapped 37 unique places from 36 emcees/groups: 16 streets/highways, 17 places, 4 neighborhoods. I added Saint Andrews Hall/The Shelter for being a premiere venue for rap battles in the 90s. The City of Detroit has an open data portal and I used their streets, neighborhoods, and zip code shapefiles for my foundation. I plotted the places myself using Google Maps as a reference for ones I did not know the exact location of. Since it’s a Detroit map I based the symbology on the colorways of Detroit sports teams. Streets are honolulu blue (Lions), neighborhoods are green (90s Pistons), and places are red (Red Wings). Streets were more common to be shouted out on the west side, and the east side had more neighborhoods and places.
Putting together the data for the map involved listening to a lot of Detroit music, some old favorites, some emcees I never listened to before. One I didn’t even know was from Detroit: Boldy James. Prior to hearing any of his songs that reference Detroit I assumed he was from Buffalo, NY like the rest of the Griselda camp. I was listening to a song of his and he mentioned Stahelin Ave. I know Stahelin because I had a cousin who lived on the street a while back and instantly added him to the list. I can imagine it probably wouldn’t go over well if I didn’t include him.
Another thing I found out: EVERYONE IS FROM EFFING 7 MILE ROAD. Just kidding, but seriously, 7 Mile was the most brought up street in lyrics. Blade Icewood, Royce da 5’9, Guilty Simpson, D-12, Esham, and others represented 7 Mile Road often.
Through this process I became a fan of several Detroit emcees I didn’t do much listening to when I lived there. When I was active DJing I made most of my money on the 40 and up events and family reunions, both venues where knowing the local scene isn’t necessarily useful for business. For this project I really dug through all of their catalogs and found some great music. Emcees like Payroll Giovanni, Peezy and Tee Grizzley are on mainstays on a few of my personal playlists now, although admittedly I didn’t listen to them much in the D.

Speaking of playlists, here are all of the songs where I cited lyrics for the map. I’m not paid by any streaming service so I’m not going to tell you which one to go to. Instead I’ll give you a list of the songs.
K-Deezy – In My Hood
Royce da 5’9” – Ride
Slum Village – Conant Gardens
Shady Records – Detroit vs Everybody Remix
Tee Grizzley – First Day Out
Eminem – 8 Mile
Guilty Simpson – Rhyme 101
D-12 – 40 Oz
Big Sean – So Much More
T. Baby – It’s So Cold in the D (reference comes from video)
Icewear Vezzo – Real Niggaz
GMac Cash – We on The Lodge Wit It
Payroll Giovanni – Get Money Stay Humble Intro
Blade Icewood – Fa Sho
Sada Baby – Alright
Drunken Master – My Nigga Jake (RIP)
Doughboyz Cashout – Neighborhood Star
Danny Brown – Greatest Rapper Ever
Esham – Back in the Day
Obie Trice – Rollin
URLtv – Arsonal vs Calicoe
Kash Doll – Check
Dex Osama – Crime in the D
Stretch Money – Pray for Me
Eastside Chedda Boyz – Detroit 2 the Bay
Tone Tone – Put Dat Shit on Yo Hood
Elzhi – Let’s Talk
Peezy – Never Seen B4
Lodge Boyz – I’m from the D
Big Herk – Show Me Luv
Fat Killaz – Skit 1, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Boldy James – Brick Van Exel
42 Dugg – Free Mine

OMISSIONS/ERRORS
Flint. I thought about doing an inset map for Flint, which is about 60 miles north of Detroit, but eventually decided against it. Flint has a robust hip-hop history as well, from the Dayton Family and MC Breed, Jon Connor, and current emcees like BFB da Packman and YN Jay. Still might do a Flint map in the future.
A was going to add Somerset Mall, a high-end shopping center north of Detroit, on the map because it’s where many purchase the infamous Cartier “Buffs” glasses and where a lot of emcees brag of ballin’ out at. It’s out of the extent of the map and didn’t want to include the rest of the suburbs just for a mall.
I know I couldn’t have included everyone worthy to be on this list. If you know of someone I missed reach out and I’ll amend the map.

Nas has always been one of my favorite emcees. Not only was I a fan of his music, listening made me want to participate. Hearing “Nas is Like” for the first time was a definitive moment of my coming up: Nas’ vocals complementing DJ Premier’s production and scratches made me want to write rhymes and get busy on the turntables. He’s a legend in the game and you’ll be hard pressed to find someone that doesn’t have him on their top emcees list. There’s no doubt that I can’t have a hip-hop atlas without deconstructing the lyrics of the God Nas.

This is my second artist-themed map and I’m building this ship while piloting it, so first I’d like to revisit my “rules” in creating it to have a standard method of comparing emcees.

1. Use lyrics from studio albums only. No mixtapes, freestyles, nor feature verses on songs by others. This isn’t to discredit the significance of those projects, but to manage the workload.
2. Note unique geographic places: countries, US states, cities (domestic and international), and unique places (domestic and international). Unique places can be buildings or neighborhoods.
3. No rights of way (highways, streets, etc). Intersections can be included as unique places.
4. Do not count the same place twice.

	Countries	US States	US Cities	International Cities	US Places	International Places	Total
Lupe Fiasco	28	9	20	14	4	2	77
Nas	42	16	29	13	32	3	135

Lupe Fiasco set the baseline with 77 references. Nas almost doubled that with 135! In his lyrics Nas calls out 42 countries, 16 US states, 42 cities, and 35 unique places. His lyrics span the globe with concentrations in western Europe, central Africa to the Middle East, and southeast Asia.

In the US, Nas’ lyrics focus east of the Mississippi and especially in the greater NYC area. You can create a New York City tour of landmarks just off of Nas songs! I would love to see it, and if anyone in his camp wants to put it together I’m happy to share my data with you.

One unique shout out: prisons. “A Message to the Feds, Sincerely We the People” is a powerful song that calls out the prison industrial complex. Nas lists seven federal prisons (he has a total of 9 jails and prisons across his body of work), asking us to “pour some juice out” so we never forget those we’ve lost to an unjust justice system.

135 references is now the bar. Who should I do next? Who do you think can top it?

Omissions:
-I used some discretion on the NYC-specific references. There were a few that seemed redundant, such as small areas within a neighborhood already referenced. I think I’m going to incorporate all of the NYC references in one map in the future: there are enough sites to do a city tour just based on Nas songs (NAS IF YOUR PEOPLE ARE READING THIS I’M WILLING TO SHARE THE DATA ON THE STRENGTH).

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)