Rap » Pop-Rap » Southern Rap

Long a third wheel to the East Coast and West Coast hip-hop scenes, Southern Rap emerged in the '90s as a fertile scene unto itself, particularly in Miami, New Orleans, and Atlanta. In the late '80s, Southern rap was primarily associated with Miami bass music, also popularly known as "booty rap" both for its rump-shaking grooves and the central preoccupation of its lyrics. Chief among its artists was Luther Campbell's 2 Live Crew, which took the sexual content of its lyrics to a hard-partying extreme, provoking outcries from pro-censorship forces across the country. The sound of Miami bass spread through the rest of the South and remained a national dance-floor staple through the '90s, with artists like Tag Team, 95 South, the 69 Boyz, Quad City DJ's, and Freak Nasty all scoring huge hit singles (albeit with lyrics far less explicit than Campbell's). Atlanta had its share of bass-heavy party rap artists, but also offered a quirkier, more distinctive (and critically acclaimed) style incorporating the funk of classic Southern soul. The cerebral Arrested Development was the first to hit the national scene in 1992, and they were followed a few years later by protégés of the harder-edged Organized Noize production squad, most notably OutKast and Goodie Mob. If Atlanta was the creative center of Southern rap, New Orleans was surely its commercial center. Master P built a lucrative empire with No Limit record label, and even if he and his roster didn't really push the envelope artistically -- most No Limit albums stuck to West Coast G-funk, Wu-Tang-style hardcore, and nothing but straight-up gangsta lyrics -- No Limit pumped out product with assembly-line efficiency and became a constant presence on the national album charts during the late '90s. Toward the end of the decade, fellow New Orleans label Cash Money and its house producer Mannie Fresh -- whose distinctive approach reworked the Southern bass sound -- scored a national breakout with Juvenile, establishing them as a legitimate rival force.