“Rep Yo City” is a perfect song for the Hip=Hop Map Project: five emcees from five different places, all talking about where they’re from. When I first started making these maps I wanted to highlight our culture’s rich bond with geography, and this song sums it up.
If you’re not familiar with the song, “Rep Yo City” was a 2002 crunk banger released on both E-40’s Grit & Grind and Lil Jon & the Eastside Boyz”s Kings of Crunk albums. Led by E-40 and produced by Lil Jon, the song also features guest verses from Petey Pablo, Bun B, and Eightball. Petey Pablo was fresh off of the success of his debut album, and Ball & Bun B were two veterans with careers as storied as E-40’s and Jon’s. If I were to put someone from the New School on to crunk music “Rep Yo City” would be one of the first five songs played.
For this one I mapped where each artist was from and matched the location with a lyric in their bars. Each place is symbolized with a mic in hand and start background. I selected NBA colorways for the stars; if you follow E-40 you know he’s an avid sports fan and is often found courtside at Golden State Warriors home games. Each star is symbolized based on the closest NBA team to the emcee’s hometown: – E-40, Vallejo, CA (Golden State Warriors) – Petey Pablo, Greenville, NC (Charlotte Hornets) – Bun B, Port Arthur, TX (Houston Rockets) – Eightball, Memphis, TN (Memphis Grizzlies) – Lil Jon, Atlanta, GA (Atlanta Hawks)
Crunk music’s been a staple in my playlist since I was a teen. Three 6 Mafia, Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, and the Ying Yang Twins-some of crunk’s most widely known names-and their 808-laden songs rattled systems from their hometowns of Memphis, Tennessee and Atlanta, Georgia all across the country, to include my neck of the woods in Detroit. Although some gave it a bad rap for being “violent”, in my opinion the music wasn’t much different than the rock songs kids were jumping in mosh pits to. Now a days you can hear crunk’s influence across not just hip-hop, but in pop and other genres too. Project Pat is being sampled on Billboard charting songs. Lil Jon’s voice is heard on electronic music mega hits. Phonk, a sub-genre of lo-fi hip-hop, often slows down drum breaks or other elements of crunk instrumentals in its architecture.
With that being said, Duke Deuce was right in exclaiming “Crunk Ain’t Dead” in his single titled the same. Deuce is a Memphis emcee keeping crunk alive for the New School, known for his high energy music and music videos, and funny shorts on social media. If you’re a fan of “Triple 6” and the like, definitely give him a listen. In “Crunk Ain’t Dead” Duke Deuce shouts out fifteen states: – Tennessee – Georgia – Texas – California – Louisiana (The Boot) – Florida – Arkansas – The Carolinas – Mississippi – Alabama – Illinois – Kentucky – Washington – Missouri All are symbolized in a deep blue as a nod to the music video, which is edited to mute all colors to gray-scale except for blue.
I will always think of The Game as the emcee who tapped into the vibe of late-80s/early-90s West Coast gangsta rap and brought it to the next generation. His music often interpolates or re-samples classic songs by NWA, DJ Quik, Ice-T, and of course Dr. Dre-who would sign him to Aftermath Records. He’s among hip-hop’s elite, possessing formidable skills on the mic and a discography boasting several albums that hit #1 on the Billboard charts.
The Game’s most widely-known trait is his repeated use of name-dropping in his lyrics. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines name-dropping as “the studied but seemingly casual mention of prominent persons as associates done to impress others”, and the hip-hop world buys into the phenomena wholeheartedly. Emcees drop the names of notable collaborators, producers, and celebrities in their lyrics: often by associating themselves with them or conducting wordplay with their names. For example, in the song “Bach to Bach” Fabolous rhymes “Quarterback life, people wanna pass you sacks / Matte black Maybach I named it Matt Hasselbeck”. This of course is a nod to NFL Pro-Bowl QB-turned-analyst Matt Hasselbeck. Game does this on a grandiose scale and his usage of proper nouns in his lyrics is arguably higher than any other emcee. I decided to conduct a count of his name drops and map them.
Method/Criteria: Using the Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive (OHHLA.com) and Genius.com I took note of everyone mentioned in The Game’s studio albums-no mixtapes-counting frequency of unique names and total name drops by album. I sorted the names into 17 categories loosely based on professions (athlete, musician, politician, etc.) to assist with later analysis. The only names omitted were fashion designers: Louis Vuitton, Tom Ford, (Mario) Prada, and the like. I didn’t include them at first, and when I though to start I was a few albums into the count and didn’t want to start over. Exceptions are Dapper Dan, Virgil Abloh, and basketball players with sneakers.
Everyone was mapped based on their hometowns or cities they were most known from. For example, Serena Williams was born in Saginaw, Michigan, but is notably from Compton, California. I aggregated location information to determine if The Game favors name-dropping people from any region in particular. Of course all points are symbolized as a nod to The Game’s membership in the Bloods.
Findings: Based on my counts The Game made a total of 1,094 name drops (averaging 109.4 per album) and mentioned 650 unique names. Based on album: – The Documentary: 130 – Doctor’s Advocate: 84 – LAX: 123 – The R.E.D. Album: 96 – Jesus Piece: 96 – The Documentary 2: 98 – The Documentary 2.5: 100 – 1992: 119 – Born 2 Rap: 102 – Drillmatic: 146 The Game’s top 5 name drops are Dr. Dre (148 times), 2Pac (75), Biggie (47), Jay-Z (42), and Kanye West (40). Dre, Pac, Kanye, Nas, and Snoop Dogg are mentioned at least once per album.
He drops musicians, record executives, politicians, fellow gang members, models, actors and actresses, and even terrorists (al-Qaeda and ISIS are both mentioned in his songs). Musicians are shouted out the most by far (377 total), followed by 85 athletes and 45 fellow gang members. He also name drops the family members (parents, spouses, and children) of 10 emcees.
Geographically a total of 36 states, two US Territories, the District of Columbia, and 30 countries are represented.
Elite Emcees: The Game has a penchant for shouting out emcees on the top of the food chain, just look at his top 5 above. Other emcees with more than 10 name drops that are top-tier in my opinion are Eminem (35), Lil Wayne (23), Kendrick Lamar (18), and Ice Cube (13).
G-Unit: The Game’s affiliation and subsequent beef with 50 Cent and G-Unit are well known in the hip-hop community. It should be no surprise The Game name drops them in both friendly and threatening bars. He calls out 50 Cent’s name the most at 35 times, and the rest of G-Unit a total of 15: Lloyd Banks (5), Young Buck (5), Tony Yayo (4), Sha Money XL (1).
West Coast Love: The Game is from Compton so of course there were more name drops of Californians than those from any other state (155). New York was a close second (143), mostly due to shouting out hip-hop veterans.
Errors/Omissions: See my notes above regarding omitting fashion designers. I also realize my numbers are quite different from other great rap data sources like Hip-Hop By The Numbers, and even by The Game’s own count, so the possibility of my own human error isn’t out of the question. I will say I come damn close though. I did my counts by hand, writing out every name drop song by song, album by album. I’m happy to share my summary tables and data with anyone who has a different count.
A map on Lupe Fiasco is kind of an obvious fit: “Paris, Tokyo” was a Grammy-nominated single with a hook that’s catchy to this day. Let’s go to sleep in Paris, wake up in Tokyo / Have a dream in New Orleans, fall in love in Chicago… I enjoy the song myself, while listening to The Cool I had the idea to map Lupe and decided to run with it.
I set out to discover just how world-traveled Lupe is in his lyrics. “Paris, Tokyo” nears a dozen geographic references alone counting states, cities, and airports (more if you count the international greetings in the third verse). How many could he fit in his body of work? I analyzed the lyrics from his seven studio albums at the time (Food & Liquor, The Cool, Lasers, Food & Liquor II, Tetsuo & Youth, Drogas Light, Drogras Wave) for geographic references. For the sake of time I only used studio albums and not mixtapes, freestyles, nor feature verses on songs by other artists. That would be a ton of music to track down for an emcee that’s been in the game for two decades now. I decided not to include airports but I did count countries, U.S. states, cities (U.S. and international) and places I thought were of unique significance (U.S. and international).
Accounting for redundancies (for example, Lupe obviously shouts out to Chicago more than once) Lupe includes no fewer than 77 unique geographic places in his lyrics: -28 countries -9 US States -34 cities (20 US, 14 international) -6 unique places (4 US, 2 international)
Every continent is covered. Lupe’s bars span from the West Coast Sun God Sam & The California Drug Deals / Rain drop Wayne and the Bangkok love bills to the Middle East Damage, managed to still be able to feel / Some of the long lost magic of downtown Damascus to Southeast Asia And the flow tight, skinny jeans skinny jeans / Hit you like Pacquiao, Philippines Philippines. Even some of the non-highlighted countries are touched by his lyrics. Lupe’s reference to Russia is actually to the U.S.S.R. (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) which at its peak encompassed many of the Baltic nations not highlighted on the map.
Arguably Lupe is the most well-traveled emcee bar for bar. He’s the baseline for the Hip-Hop Map Project to gage whether or not these emcees truly get around as much as they say they do.
Omissions: Africa. If you’re a fan of Lupe Fiasco’s music you know Mother Africa is ubiquitous in his music. In hindsight I probably should have outlined the continent to show its prominence in his body of work.
Antarctica. Lupe mentions Antarctica once in the song “Go to Sleep” (Food & Liquor II) and is not included in the extent of the map.
Which Park are Y’all Playin’ Basketball: South Central Parks With Outdoor Basketball Courts
Who doesn’t know Ice Cube’s “It Was a Good Day”? Even now it remains one of hip-hop’s greatest and most beloved tunes. You’d be hard pressed to find someone that doesn’t enjoy Cube rapping about California livin’ over the Isley Brothers. Personally I have too many to count. Jamming to it after winning a football game in high school, or closing the deal with a woman-lady after a night clubbing. Ending a party by playing it as the last song of a set. My favorite has to be during Basic Training where the Drill Sergeants casually went back and forth with the lyrics as if they were having a conversation, trying to see which Private was going to be the first to flinch or laugh.
This was a perfect song to build a map from. My approach isn’t the first analytical stab at deconstructing the song; there was a viral Tumblr post that estimated which day had to be Ice Cube’s good day based on the references to real events in his lyrics. I’m going to focus on one particular line. Towards the end of his first verse, Cube decides to find out what his friends are doing:
Called up the homies and I’m askin’ y’all / Which park, are y’all playin’ basketball? / Get me on the court and I’m trouble / Last week f***ed around and got a triple double!
I got to thinking, I wonder where his friends were hooping at? Which park was chosen? What options did they have to choose from? So I created this map of potential options to where they could be playing. I made three assumptions along the way:
They’re playing basketball at a public park.
They’re in South Central Los Angeles; a pretty easy assumption given South Central is referenced in the song: Plus nobody I know got killed in South Central LA / Today was a good day
The court is outside; in the music video they’re playing ball at an outdoor court.
I began with mapping the 3,038 public parks in Los Angeles County. To determine the number of parks in South Central, I used the neighborhood boundaries and definitions from the LA Times’ Mapping LA Neighborhoods project, found with a little Google and Wikipedia searching. According to the LA Times, there are 32 neighborhoods in South Central including the cities of Inglewood and Hawthorne. After filtering based on these boundaries I found 140 South Central parks. To find out how many of these parks had outdoor courts I cross-referenced my park locations with satellite imagery. I identified outdoor courts by the relatively easy identifiable paint markings (baselines, three point lines, half court, etc). As a result, Ice Cube and the homies had 44 parks to choose from, categorized in blue on the map. That’s a lot of options; if he didn’t ask first Ice Cube likely could have went to the wrong park.
ERRORS/LIMITATIONS: Hindsight is 2020, and right when I completed the map I noticed one huge omission: COMPTON. Turns out Compton is southeast of the South Central neighborhoods and is not included in the LA Times’ list (it’s listed as South East). Although Compton isn’t “technically” in South Central I think it’s important to include in the context of LA hip-hop. It’s the home of N.W.A. and has cultural significance and history when we think of the Black LA experience. If you think I should include Compton, let me know and I’ll kick out an updated version.
Rap GEO 