Hip-Hop Evolution (2016–…): Season 3, Episode 4 - The Dirty South - full transcript
A hot, sticky music scene is born in Atlanta, Georgia, as the infectious hooks of TLC and Kris Kross yield to the gritty originality of OutKast and Goodie Mob.
[Brass band intro]
[narrator] It's been a long time since I visited the South
but don't get it twisted.
From the moment 2 Live Crew and the Geto Boys hit the airwaves,
the South was doing its thing.
So it makes sense that I come here,
to the birthplace of Martin Luther King,
a key city in the civil rights movement,
a city many people consider America's Black Mecca,
to find out where hip-hop was heading next.
Welcome to Atlanta.
[Killer Mike] For a 100 years, Atlanta has been a place
where, even in the midst of Jim Crowism and segregation,
black people carved a way for themselves.
You have a 51 to 54% black population.
You have African American leadership from a mayoral perspective
for the last 45 years.
Never shall I let you down!
Third most corporations of any city.
The black dollar matters here. Black spirituality matters here.
Black arts matter here.
So, if you are an African American with something to contribute
to the culture and you're in Atlanta,
you have a chance, culturally, of breaking through.
[drum break]
[Speech] People come from a lot of places and move to Atlanta
for that opportunity, for that bigger space.
So you had a lot of people from a lot of different places.
Bringing different musical vibes to the city,
and Atlanta had its own sound, you know what I mean?
But it was sort of an offshoot of what was going on in Miami, bass style.
[crowd cheering]
What was the flavor in Atlanta in the late 80s?
Uh, there was a relationship between Atlanta and Miami at that time.
What was translated as a skating rink music,
or as booty shake music, Miami bass.
That's what the music was called.
In Atlanta, it was just called the straight bass.
It had no identity.
[frenetic beats]
[narrator] With Miami bass rattling woofers and skating rinks,
Atlanta was still looking outwards for its hip-hop.
So it's no surprise that the city's first recognized MC
wouldn't come from the ATL either.
Instead it would be an Adidas rocking b-boy from the south Bronx
who would lay down the first seeds of hip hop in the ATL.
♪ Come on! Shake it! Come on, shake it! ♪
♪ Come on, shake it! Come on! ♪
♪ Come on, shake it! Come on, shake it! ♪
-Yes, sir. -What's up?
-You good? -Everything good, man.
Um, so tell me like, you know, your family came from the Bronx.
-Yeah. -Uh...
Uh, why did your family want to come to Atlanta?
Basically, you know, Mom and Dad,
wanted us to have a better life, you know what I'm saying? So...
I guess my dad saw the potential,
so he was like, "I've got to get there before it start blowing up."
You know what I'm saying?
-It has blown up since then. -Yeah, major city. Major.
[percussive beats]
[interviewer] What did people think of hip-hop initially here?
Because you're coming from the Bronx,
and were you trying to introduce people to hip-hop and...
Oh yeah, believe it or not, me and my brother,
we had a little Community Center in the neighborhood we lived in.
Uh, yeah.
And my brother, he was like the DJ.
So when he's DJing, I'm on the floor breakdancing, you know what I'm saying?
They really didn't understand it.
They was like, "These people come from New York.
What are they doing?"
Little man spinning on the floor,
my man DJing with two turntables, so it was really different.
So we really introduced hip-hop to them down here.
When I got through with the break dancing and stuff,
I used to DJ at parties.
And whenever I would throw on The Egyptian Lover records,
and the Pretty Tony songs from California and Miami,
people packed the dance floor, but when I throw on Doug E Fresh,
or something from New York, everybody go sit down.
So I got smarter.
I said if I get a chance to make a record, I'll make an up-tempo record.
[man] We was working on the Comin' Correct album,
and while we was working on that particular album,
I noticed songs with repetitive hooks
were starting to be more popular.
And I was like, Salt'N'Pepa got "Push It,"
we need to come up with something very repetitive."
And, at the last minute, I was like, "Let's do Shake it."
And Shy D wrote the record, me and Mike Fresh put the beat together.
And next thing you know, we've got a hit record, man!
♪ One night I was cooling Sitting in the tub ♪
♪ And I wanted to go out And go to a club ♪
♪ So I got out the tub And put my sneakers on ♪
♪ Yo, that's what you did, D ♪
♪ Homeboy, word, it's on ♪
[MC Shy D] I came with the New York sound, voice wise.
The South and California, beat wise.
And I just put it together, and I made a good recipe.
♪ Jumped in the Cadillac Went and got TP ♪
♪ And drove downtown And picked up LT ♪
We used to call it shake dancing before it was called twerking.
And then, that started the stripping thing in the strip capital.
So Atlanta was the shake dance capital.
It just took Atlanta by storm, man, like...
you know, the visuals he had for the videos,
and the way the girls would dance to the music in the club.
It was just crazy.
♪ I say get out there And let me see you ♪
♪ Shake it, come on, shake it Come on, come on, shake it ♪
It was like Run-DMC had a son
and sent him down south to live with his mama.
You know what I mean. [chuckling]
He had the b-boy stance, the way he rocked his hat.
Everything about Shy D was New York.
♪ And let me see you shake it! ♪
What kind of response did you get from people in Atlanta about that song?
Believe it or not, I'm going to be honest with you...
-Atlanta wouldn't really support me, -Wow.
because they knew I was from New York.
I don't got that Atlanta slang, you know?
People still hear the New York in me, you know what I am saying?
So I didn't really get the love here.
Kilo got the love.
Kilo was the first to do that.
[Synthesizer riff]
[narrator] The Bronx bred Shy D may have been the first b-boy in Atlanta.
Everybody down! Now! Now! Now!
[officer] Get the car! The car! The trunk!
[narrator] That wasn't enough for the ATL.
The city needed someone who could speak to their reality.
And they'd find that in a nasal voiced MC
hailing from the city's tough Bankhead neighborhood.
♪ There's a white girl in town ♪
♪ Name is cocaine ♪
♪ Get inside your brain ♪
♪ Play you like a lame ♪
[Kilo] Bankhead was a fearsome side of town.
They used to get cut throats, really...
Like, blade cuts at liquor store type of stuff,
back in those days, I remember, but...
uh, it was where I went wild.
♪ Cocaine Cocaine ♪
[reporter] Bankhead Courts is afflicted with drugs and violence.
[woman] It's hell. You can't even come out in the evening time.
You're scared you might get shot!
-[crowd screaming] -[gunshots]
[Kilo] It was a drug war. Crack was new.
And Zell Miller was our governor then,
and he designed this crew called the Red Dog Task Force Squad.
[officer] Show me your hands! On your knees!
[reporter] The name comes from a tactical maneuver in football.
An all-out assault against the quarterback.
[officer] We're going to kill you, you want to stop!
You want to stop! Reach and you're dead.
[Kilo] What was happening with rap music everywhere,
not only in Atlanta, was laundering.
And I was...
basically a launderer at that point in time,
for like posses or gangs.
We had a gang back then called Strictly Business Posse.
So they produced me.
When I came out with my song "Cocaine,"
I had done juvenile time.
So, I wrote it downtown, on the floor, in the juvenile cell.
"There's a white girl in town,
her name is cocaine."
♪ Get inside your brain ♪
♪ Play you like a lame ♪
♪ Yeah, you on her good side ♪
♪'Cause she make you rich ♪
♪ The first time you hit her ♪
♪ Break you like a brick ♪
[Kilo] I made a song based off somebody's surroundings.
You see from the window, your uncle sells it,
your mom does it. You know what I'm saying?
You get shoes from it.
And so, it got your attention.
♪That's what you get ♪
♪ For selling that crack cocaine ♪
At that time, dope boys was
paid in Atlanta.
Driving all kinds of cars. They were like spaceships back then.
Rims.
Like, what's going on with him? What are you doing?
Kilo is rapping about it.
So he-- he struck a chord.
[muffled police radio]
[Killer MIke] When "Cocaine" dropped, it perfectly described the voice
directly from the trap.
In a way that only a kid growing up in boy homes
could describe the world falling apart around him.
With dopeness, harmony, melody.
He was...
visceral with the cuts, with the shit that he was saying.
♪ Make you a big man ♪
♪ Buy you a Uzi ♪
♪ She say go kill your brother Or you gonna lose me ♪
It was actually a drug awareness song when I wrote it,
but a lot of people missed the message
because they was having so much fun with the word "cocaine."
"Cocaine says she loves you, but she really don't."
♪ She says "I'll always be there" But she really won't ♪
[Kilo] People went wild.
We did $60,000 out the trunk.
-Crazy. -Yeah.
But I got signed from that one idea.
And then, when I came out with my record, I was like 15 years old.
[Kawan] Kilo was coming straight off of the base space.
So he was coming off of Shy D.
And his music was still fast.
You know, "Cocaine" was still 120, 130, somewhere in that space.
But he was the first person we heard who was from Atlanta
that was like young like us. Like, he felt like us talking.
So he was the first Atlanta rapper, but radio wasn't really playing his music.
We didn't have enough hip-hop.
Honestly. To even have that much space on the radio.
[narrator] While the ATL pioneers were steadily developing their own style,
there was still no major infrastructure to support the city's young hip-hop scene.
But ready to fill the void for Atlanta's DJs and MCs
was a dapper entrepreneur with a flamboyant pitch.
Hey, hi, hello!
I'm that cool fly fellow.
King Edward J, I say!
[rolls r] Rocking Atlanta GA.
Making Decatur sound much greater.
Ha, ha! Yep!
♪ Go, go, go Go, go, go ♪
[King] The good thing about Atlanta was it was hungry for a change.
The music scene in Atlanta
wasn't getting the respect that it should've gotten.
We had one radio station
that would play rap music for one hour
on Friday night.
And they would play all the music from East Coast and West Coast,
but they wouldn't play the music from right home.
And so I decided to open a business of my own.
The J Shop.
And here we are, ladies and gentlemen,
at King Edward J Records and Tapes.
This is little Yakimi, she's the youngest member of J team.
It's me, Edward J, I say.
Rocking Atlanta GA!
We were a mini record company.
First, it was just mainly
selling records and tapes.
[dirty laughing]
After a while, we began to make beats and rap to the beats.
-Now getting into production. -Yes, getting into production.
And other DJs who wanted to prove
how good they were would come to the J team.
People like Raheem the Dream. DJ Smurf. Shy D.
Of course, Shy D was doing something on his own,
but he came aboard the J Team as a DJ.
Once he put you on that mixtape, you was going to blow up.
I mean, you could be a Joe Blow,
but if he put you on one of his mixtapes, your name was going to get out there.
And, I mean, it was incredible.
This man was selling tapes for like $15,
13.75 or something. I mean, you know.
That's an album!
He was selling cassette tapes for that.
We would get a nifty $13.50,
for a 90-minute rock with the J Team.
Right here, my dear, make that perfectly clear.
[DJ Jelly] You know, the mixtape scene was the radio,
so we were doing something similar to how New York was doing
with their tapes of freestyles.
So we basically sling the tapes through all the neighborhoods.
He was the ear to the streets.
So, everything that was coming out underground,
it was on the J Tape first.
If it were not for Edward J,
I don't know that there would be a hip-hop scene
in the way that it is now.
What they were doing for the music scene in Atlanta
was the music scene.
[narrator] King Edward J and the J Team amplified Atlanta's hip-hop scene.
But it was still a long way from getting love outside the 404.
But that was about to change.
Recognizing the fresh talent pool in the city
and attracted by its history as a Black Mecca,
a polished R&B duo will come from Los Angeles to set up shop.
[Ian] Atlanta was bubbling, but not to the point where we were ready to break.
We had our artists that were making noise,
but we were just a regional... city.
You know, we-- we hadn't done anything that broke...
-Nationally. -Okay.
And accepted nationally.
So, when LaFace came to Atlanta,
they had Arista behind them, Clive Davis.
And it was just something that Atlanta hadn't seen before.
LaFace records was the first major record company, if you will,
to descend upon ATL.
You know, once LA and Babyface decided to come to Atlanta,
I think it was right around 89, you know, it was a huge buzz in the city.
And I think, more than anything, LA and Babyface wanted to come here to see
what Atlanta was from an authentic standpoint.
I believe they struggled for a bit.
You know, they were still signing 80s type bands with processed hair.
They started to get more connected here in Atlanta
when they connected with the Atlanta producers
like Dallas Austin.
When they started tapping into...
our natural resources here
is when things started to make a turn for them.
When you come here, there's a lot of new people doing things new ways.
People who haven’t been in the industry for long, which is very good.
They were figuring out what to do to start their label off.
I was making records.
I was kind of the first one... kind of doing music in the new sense.
I made it first with Another Bad Creation, which was the one that started to
kind of rattle stuff around here.
LaFace was one of the first ones to come and say, "Look at all of this gold."
Somebody needs to put the thing here and give them an outlet out of here.
Dallas Austin,
he was the shit around here because he was the one producer.
And I'm like, "Oh, he is doing it."
So everybody was looking up to Dallas.
And when LA and Babyface moved to Atlanta,
I was working at a hair salon.
And the woman I worked for, she was actually doing Pebbles' hair.
And Pebbles was married to LA Reed, and...
I was like, "You need to go tell Pebbles I'm the bomb.
She needs to holler at me."
I didn't think she was going to do it, but Pebbles called me at home that night.
[ad libbing]
It was Chili, me and Lisa,
and we were calling ourselves TLC.
It wasn't really girly,
but it had so much hip-hop elements.
Lisa, she came in like a little feisty rapper,
so she brought the hip-hop elements.
♪ Or can it be I'm a little too friendly ♪
♪ So to speak, hypothetically ♪
♪ Say I supply creativity ♪
♪ To what others must take As a form of self-hate ♪
When we did get to LA Reed,
he was like, "Who do you want to work with?"
Only person I kept saying is Dallas Austin, Dallas Austin,
he has to be our producer.
And he got it.
♪ Every now and then I get a little crazy ♪
♪ That's not the way it's supposed to be ♪
TLC came from out of nowhere
and just wiped the floor with everything. Dallas Austin put his foot in that.
Back then, I know that he was heavily influenced
by the New Jack Swing sound.
But Dallas took it and made his own distinctive sound.
The music still was dripping with hip-hop.
Not necessarily Southern hip-hop, but with hip-hop.
♪ What about your friends ♪
At the same time that Dallas Austin was having major success with LaFace,
another young producer with a keen eye for talent and deep roots
in hip-hop was making a name for himself.
[synthesizer beats]
Thanks for doing this. We appreciate it.
-All right! Come on. -Cool.
[Jermaine] I started as a dancer,
dancing around the city of Atlanta.
I was just opening up a bunch of different shows like for Cameo and...
um... groups Brick and SO--
groups that was around the city doing what they do.
And bigger concerts that would come to the city.
♪ And I always had to be home by ten ♪
♪ Right before the fun Was about to begin ♪
[Jermaine] My father tried to figure out a way for me to open up these shows.
And the Fresh Fest came to Atlanta,
it was like the only place to be at
if you was into hip-hop at that particular point in time.
♪ The freaks come out at night ♪
♪ The freaks come out at night ♪
We figured out how to get me to be the opening act.
And that was my birth into hip-hop and music, period.
This is Jermaine!
[voices talking over each other]
[man] Open up man, open up!
-See rapping has been very, very good... -[all] to me!
What were you learning from other artists on that tour, when you were on the road?
I was learning hip-hop. You know? I was just learning about hip-hop.
And something about me said that I could produce.
I don't know what it was,
but something told me I could write for other people.
And I could put out my own artists.
One time, I went to the mall...
and...
these guys walking around the mall, these two kids.
And I was like...
I'm watching the reaction of...
the people at the mall to these kids.
I'm like, "Look how they acting at the cookie company."
The girls in the back, serving,
acting like they seen them on TV or something.
Screaming and like: "Oh, girl!"
And giving them free shit, all this. And I'm like, "What is this?"
I just walked up to them like, ”Yo who are you all?"
He's like, "What you mean?"
"What you all do?"
"We don't do nothing, we just kick it." I'm like...
"Y'all just kick it?"
Immediately. my mind was just like, “Oh, God.
These guys need a record out right now."
Yo, what’s up, it’s the Daddy Mac.
And you know it’s the Mac Daddy and we Kris Kross.
When I met Kris Kross, they weren't really jumping to do it.
These kids didn't even know that this could possibly happen.
So, when they met me,
I just started asking them questions about rapping, like, "You all rap
the way I see ya'll rapping other people's records,
we can make our own song."
So we went to the studio
and made "Jump."
♪ Jump, jump Daddy Mac will make you jump, jump ♪
Kris Kross represented something that I had never seen before.
The coolness of being a rapper and the attitude of getting girls
and all that was already in their head.
-So... -It's crazy.
For them to get a hit record, it was like, "This ain't nothing."
I was at my grandmother's house and I saw Kris Kross on TV,
and I was like, "Oh my God! I want to be with them!
That's who I feel like I need to be with."
You know?
They had their clothes backwards, jumping all around.
And J created them, you know?
He said, "Turn your pants inside out and do this, do that."
And they did it and they followed his lead and look at the success that they had.
Everybody was jumping.
[Kawan] They on tour with Michael Jackson?
Some Atlanta niggas is on tour with Michael Jackson? That's crazy.
[reporter] Call it rap, call it hip-hop. Whatever you call it,
in the case of Kriss Kross, call it successful.
Kriss Kross is not only shaking up the music world,
they've also managed to spark fashion craze.
I was in college at Alabama A&M
and they had grown-ass men wearing their pants backwards.
So, if you want to know the impact of "Jump,"
that was the motherfucking impact of "Jump."
Much appreciated, thank you. Looks all right, what do you think?
-A little bit bigger. -A little bit bigger, thank you.
Kriss Kross, we didn't really consider it hip-hop.
There was a void that was there.
And that's not to insult it, you know what I mean?
Because the success is not debatable.
It was the popular sound that Jermaine did,
in a way that he always deserves his credit and his respect for that.
Jermaine gave us a group out of the stratosphere,
but that was still a group based on the sound outside of Atlanta.
You know, they weren't the grimy hip-hop, but...
you have to give credit to Kriss Kross for opening up the national stage
and international stage for Atlanta.
1992 was the first year that we noticed
that this is working because Kriss Kross was popping,
TLC had got signed and they had a record out,
it was starting to blow.
Then you had Arrested Development who,
we had friends in that group as well, it's like, this year,
I got three people who I know who was on Arsenio.
Like, I taped Arsenio three times for some people I know.
[Rodney] When we look back on that era,
we see how the industry was able to come in
and take a lot of raw talent,
shape it and mold it.
But in terms of getting to the root of Atlanta culture,
that hadn't quite happened yet.
Organized Noize, to me, is the first ones to present to us
the sound of Atlanta.
They had decided, "We want some lyrics.
We want some hip-hop cats."
[mellow guitar groove]
[narrator] From the pioneering bounce of Shy D and Kilo Ali,
to the crossover success of TLC and Kris Kross,
Atlanta's hip-hop scene was growing fast.
To many, though,
the city's real soul and sound have yet to be tapped.
But in a basement in Southeast Atlanta, a trio of producers,
Rico Wade, Sleepy Brown and Ray Murray,
were working hard on bringing all the pieces together.
The three friends went by the name of Organized Noize.
And, lucky for us,
someone at LaFace Records found out about them.
What's up, gentlemen?
-Hey, what's up? -What's up, man?
Thank you for this, much appreciated.
[interviewer] So, tell me how you guys hooked up with LaFace Records.
We were real good friends with Tionne-- T-Boz. [chuckles]
And that's when LaFace first came here, and she ended up getting a deal
with Pebbles because she was doing Pebble's hair.
So, the same thing kind of happened for us.
She introduced us to Pebbles and we went um...
I'll never forget, we had the interview with her.
[elevator ping]
And she comes out of the elevator, it was like she was walking slow,
was gorgeous.
She walks in the room,
we all sitting there with our mouths open like...
It was cool. She was really nice, man.
She listened to us and every time a beat played,
she asked who did the beat and everybody would point at me.
Who played the bass line? Point at me.
She said, "Okay, let me introduce you to LA."
So, they held a little meeting.
It was really the start for us, you know.
Pebbles said the production was dope.
Yes, Pebbles liked the production.
Pebbles loved to even meet--
Pebbles in audition to get call backs, it was like,
"We're going to make it! We can make beats!"
So, that's where it was like, now we find a rap group.
We need people who really can rap.
I don't need nobody that I got to write no raps for.
I need some MCs.
[gong strike]
I was working at Lamonte's Beauty Supply in East Point,
Headland and Delowe.
A girl that worked there,
she told me that two guys from her school
wanted to come over there, basically come rap or whatever.
I guess they caught the bus to the plaza.
When these kids came, they might have been 16, 15.
They had on cut-off shorts with thermals.
-Country niggas. -Yeah!
They were fly, man!
I remember standing in the parking lot, letting them niggas rap,
and thinking like, "Yeah,
this is that. This is it. This is it.
I found some MCs. This is it."
School is now in session.
♪ Time and time again See I be thinking about that future ♪
♪ Back in the day when we were slaves I bet we was some cool ass niggas ♪
♪ But now we vultures Slam my nigga back out ♪
-How are you doing? -All right.
-Big fan. -Cool, thanks.
How's your day going?
Uh... Super fantastic.
♪ See now in the ghetto Or should I be saying Lakewood ♪
♪ You better be strapped cause them niggas just ain't good ♪
[interviewer] So first of all, let's talk about you two auditioning.
How serious were you guys at that time?
Was that just kind of a hobby or were you like,
"No, this is dead serious. We need to make this."
No, we was dead ass serious, you know?
We always...
were MCs first, so we took pride in it.
It was lyricism, you know?
Before us, you had Raheem the Dream.
Shy D. Me and Dre used to listen to Kilo Ali.
We used to be in high school bumping that shit.
Like, the production was crazy.
So, you know to come behind that, like, we were just straight busting.
♪ Just being a hustler Serving on all your customers ♪
♪ Rent was due on the 1st of the month So I'm hustling ♪
That day, we just kept trading our bars back and forth.
And it was maybe eight minutes long.
They rapped for about 30 minutes a piece,
And I was like, "Damn, are they ever going to stop?"
Jesus Christ!
♪ I’ve been slipping, slowly but surely ♪
♪ Niggas I used to hang with Wants to act like they don't know me ♪
♪ Come and listen to my story ♪
Man, these boys...
were so metaphoric.
It was so metaphoric. They had all the punchlines.
I'm rolling reefer out of a Regal, how can I refrain?
That drove Rico nuts when he said that.
♪ I'm rolling reefer out of a Regal, How can I refrain ♪
[voices] Ohhh!
We was over there like,
"Goddamn! Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!" We was fucking them up.
They was just hip-hopped out.
They was phrased out.
To find these guys from the South and to be Southern,
and have those kinds of skills, that skill set,
and to be young!
This is the putty that we need, per se,
no disrespect to their creativity and their talent, but
it's the putty we need to play with.
They was like, "You're coming with us to The Dungeon."
It was like, "All right." So that was our initiation.
All right, check this out, we're at The Dungeon.
Rico Wade house, you know what I'm saying? Where we do all the stuff, you know?
You all know Big Boi.
[men] Ohhh!
Wait a minute, I've been hearing a lot about The Dungeon,
where all your beats get made.
I heard it's real funky in there. Let's go and get some of that flavor.
Goodie good, I’m with that.
♪ Well, it's the M-I-crooked letter Coming around the South ♪
♪ Rolling straight Hammers and Vogues In that old Southern slouch ♪
Now, we, like, down here in The Dungeon, right?
-You know? -Ain't no thing but a chicken wing.
How did you guys end up in The Dungeon? Tell me about that.
The actual dungeon with the dirt basement floors.
It was my mom's basement that we would run wires down to.
So, we took the little equipment we did have
and we was there working on beats.
From the time you walk in that area, you open that door,
it's a lot of graffiti. People were tagging.
♪ Who raise yo' block? The one and only OutKast ♪
♪ Many a nigga falling fast And I continue blasting, swiftly ♪
It wasn't even really a basement, it was a crawl space.
Really muddy, no real walls, no real structure just a few poles.
And that's where our whole crew-- that's where we all hung out at.
[Big Boi] Sofas, those raggedy cushions out of it,
nails coming out of that motherfucker.
Nobody had a job.
Everybody had sleeping bags.
It was like a big slumber party, seven days a week.
It was almost like camp, you know what I mean?
You didn't have to worry about your mama messing with you,
you didn't have to worry about no chores.
So, when it says Dungeon Family,
we definitely are a family, man,
because we spent time together.
Nobody's going home.
Everybody's rapping and writing all day long.
They may step outside and play football for a minute,
may have a little smoke break.
[T-Boz] I don't smoke or drink,
and that's all they was doing.
I don't got time to be in there with all these drunk people
and all this weed.
♪ We're gonna get high ♪
A lot a lot a lot a lot a lot of weed.
♪ High ♪
♪ High ♪
A lot a lot of weed.
Just a lot of weed.
This was the gold era of hip-hop with Philly blunts,
you see the little Philly joints all over the floor.
But, you know, we was all ready to be
selfless, meant to support
Outkast, make sure they succeed, that's what's important.
That's what's imperative. That's what's first and foremost.
It was like a collaborative effort of the whole squad.
It was everybody's baby because we were all one crew,
and this was our first shot.
We're just trying to put Atlanta out there,
and let people know Atlanta is here
and they got some real players in this game down here, you know?
Our Southern music different than everybody else,
because we've been here for so long.
It's different, we got something to say.
We tell about our real lives, you know? Like that.
[wholesome 50s music]
[Christmas bell music]
LA calls, we're doing a Christmas album. A LaFace Christmas album.
Everybody got to turn a Christmas song in.
What were you thinking at that point?
Fuck!
A Christmas song?
Man, they trying to fuck our career before it even gets started.
It's hip-hop!
This is hip-hop. Finna sell us out.
Come on, we're for the-- come on. Even though,
I knew about Run DMC.
I knew about Kurtis Blow.
So I knew it had worked before.
So, in my mind I say, "I've got to go sell this shit."
Was like, "I know what we'll do.
We just goddamn do a song about what we do on Christmas.
Like, we ain't had a Christmas tree. We was in The Dungeon.
So we just rapped about what we did on Christmas.
And it turned out to be Player’s Ball.
♪ It's beginning to look a lot like, what? Follow my every step ♪
♪ Take notes on how I crept I's bout to go in depth ♪
♪ This is the way I creep my season, Here's my ghetto rep ♪
♪ I kept, to say the least No, no it can't cease ♪
[Maurice] They talk about this Players Ball,
which had always been legend and lore
in Atlanta's black hustlers’ community.
-It always took place-- -On Christmas Day.
♪ All the players came From far and wide ♪
[Ian] It was almost like an anti Christmas song, to be honest.
-Yes. -You know what I am saying?
It's not a holiday for us. It's another day at work.
We've still got to get out of here, we've got to hustle. We've got to survive.
♪ When the Player’s Ball is happening All day ery'day ♪
Ain't no Chimneys in the ghetto, I won't be hanging my socks on chimneys.
♪ Ain't no chimneys in the ghetto ♪
♪ So I won't be hanging my socks On no chimney ♪
♪ I'm fit as a tick, fix me a plate I got the remedy ♪
♪ Some greens and that ham, not Don't need no ham ♪
♪ Hocks don't play me like I'm smoking rocks ♪
♪ I got the munchies ♪
Oh my God! They were so dope, you know?
It was a sound that you hadn't heard before.
And they were so different, but they were so dope together.
♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪
Big Boi, he likes to party. He liked the cars, you know, the girls.
♪ 'Cause I'm a player Doing what the players do ♪
[Khujo] Big Boi is a wordsmith.
He can make words
rhyme that don't rhyme.
♪ I’m gettin curious 'cause the house
♪ Smelling stank of chitlins Old as bitches ♪
♪ I make no wishes 'Cause the mobbing folk ♪
♪ Niggas in the back getting tipsy ♪
♪ Off the nog and high as hell Off the contact smoke ♪
And Dre was always a little bit more the eclectic one.
♪ So tell me what did you expect? ♪
♪ You thought I'd break my neck ♪
♪ To help y'all deck the-- Oh now ♪
[Mr. DJ] Dre is the philosopher, he makes you think.
Even some of his verses, to this day,
I'm just now getting.
Andre 3000 can rhyme
a 32-bar rhyme,
and you'll be on the edge of your seat from bar one to bar 32.
♪ It goes give me ten And I'll serve you then now we bend ♪
♪ The corner in my Cadillac My heart does not go pittypat for no rat ♪
♪ I'm leaning back My elbows out the window ♪
♪ Coke, rum, indo fills my body Where's the party ♪
♪ We roll deep we dip to underground See a lot of hoes around ♪
♪ I spit my game while waiting countdown ♪
♪ A five fo’, a three two Here comes the one ♪
♪ A new year has begun P-Funk spark another one ♪
♪ All the players came from far and wide ♪
[Rico] Player's Ball came on.
It was, "Oh shit. It's on the radio!"
And I just remember I liked it.
Like, aw man,
didn't know that
it really was going to take off.
The song, and you know, debuts on the album.
It begins to move up the charts, so...
LA Reid tells Rico,
"All right. This song is moving.
You have to get your boys to do a whole album."
♪ Get up, stand up So what's said, you dickhead? ♪
♪ See when I was a youngster Used to wear them fuckin' Pro Keds ♪
♪ My mama made me do it But the devil, he made me smart ♪
[Big Boi] It was a long process.
Southernplayalistic, we worked on that shit for a long time.
And for months, Organized Noize was making beats
while we was laying vocals and...
Cee Lo would come through, or Gipp would come through
and it was all hands on deck.
♪ I don’t recall ever graduating at all ♪
♪ Sometimes I feel I'm just a disappointment to y'all ♪
♪ Every day, I just lay around Then I can't be found ♪
♪ Always asking "gimme some" Living life like a bum ♪
[Cee Lo] Git up, Git out" was my first verse
and it was such a humble moment for everybody.
Everybody was just so proud to be a part of something
that we knew was real. We felt it in our bones.
And we were just introducing
who we were and where we were from for the first time.
♪ I write the deep ass rhymes ♪
♪ So, let me take ya away ♪
♪ Back to when a nigga stayed In Southwest Atlanta, ay ♪
[Killer Mike] Organized Noize, Outkast and The Dungeon Family gave us a sound.
They look like us, walk like us, talk like us.
Are into Cadillacs and Chevrolets,
or walk around in flip flops and socks, just like us.
[Da Brat] Southernplayalistic.
You know? Is what you played in your Cadillac.
It was collard greens and cornbread and fish and grits.
You know what I'm saying? It just--
-You could feel that. -You could feel that.
You could feel the Southern in it.
♪ You need to git up, git out And git something ♪
♪ How will you make it If you never even try ♪
♪ You need to git up, git out And git something ♪
♪ 'Cause you and I Got to do for you and I ♪
[Big Boi] We was proud to be from Atlanta.
We was putting our city on the map and we wanted to let you know
exactly where we was from.
Whether it was East Point, College Park, Decatur, The Swats,
like, we embodied all that, and we repped the whole city.
What do you remember hearing from radio programmers in New York?
"They country."
"We ain't playing that country shit."
"Whatever."
"I got nothing against the guys, but you know, I can't really relate."
And I was like, "We're country? Like, that's all you've got to say?"
You're not really taking the time to listen what they're talking about.
[police siren]
When we were at the Source Awards
it was very New York! New York was heavy.
Brooklyn!
What up?
That particular Source Awards was, like, so historic.
You have the East Coast-West Coast beef going on.
The East Coast don't love Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg?
[booing]
[Cee Lo] The tension in the room was so thick,
you could cut it with a knife.
These motherfuckers they came to fight!
So, we just kind of looking, kind of naively, back and forth, like,
"East-West. East-West"
It was myself, Big Boi, Dre
and we don't want any parts of the beef.
You know, we're just happy to be here.
All right! Hold up!
And the winner is...
-Outkast! -Outkast!
When they announced that Outkast won,
I was almost in a complete state of shock.
I was like, "Holy crap!
We did it! We won!"
[interviewer] When you guys got Best New Artist,
what did it feel like just to be there as a southern act?
How did that feel?
It was dope to be recognized, you know.
That was like one of the top honors.
Just like the hip-hop mecca, you know? Madison Square Garden.
Just a boy from East Point. It was just like, "Whoa. Whoa."
[booing]
And then they booed us when we won, it was like...
That's fucked up. You know?
Yeah!
Word.
What's up?
Goodie Mob in the house! We want to say, what's up in New York?
'Cause we from down South!
It's New York up in this, you know? And you all live here.
This is y'all city.
They were trying to be all diplomatic,
and like, "We know this your city."
Trying to pay homage, if you will.
But then he does something that's very-- it's a very southern sensibility.
He looks at Andre and he's like, "So what's up?"
Which means, he wants you to talk your shit. [laughing]
"So what's up, Dre?"
Yeah, first of all, you know?
We want to thank God. Just, saying dead serious,
because if it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be here.
But it's like this, though.
I'm tired of folks, you know what I'm saying?
The close-minded folks, you know?
We've got a demo tape and nobody want to hear it,
but the South got something to say, that's all I got to say.
[Da Brat] Andre was very emotional.
And...
if you didn't believe anything that they've ever said,
you knew he meant that.
Did that kind of put the battery in your back a little bit?
The battery was already there,
they just put the jumper cables on that motherfucker.
Because what they did was step in the ant bed.
It just made us, you know, strive to be better
than we already were, which was like [whistles].
You know what I mean?
It's like, you know...
we're going to show you all motherfuckers, you know what I am saying?
[edgy piano chords]
[narrator] Outkast's win at The Source Awards
taught The Dungeon family two things:
that they were amongst the best in hip-hop,
and that the South was far from being understood.
But their next crew would clear up any misunderstandings
about what the South stood for
and what they stood against.
♪ When the scene unfolds ♪
♪ Young girls thirteen years old ♪
♪ Expose themselves To any Tom, Dick, and Hank ♪
♪ Got more stretch marks than these hoes Hollin’ they got rank ♪
Tell me about how Goodie Mob kind of came together.
After the success of Outkast,
it was real, you know what I mean?
Everybody has their own individual aspirations
and appointed places.
So we needed something where we could all be introduced
as a unit, and...
it was the humility - you know, and the practicality of Rico Wade
that brought the Goodie Mob together.
♪ Who's that peeking in my window Pow, nobody now ♪
♪ Who's that peeking in my window, pow! ♪
[Rico] We got a chance to introduce Goodie Mob.
What's up, this is one fourth of the Goodie Mob, Cee Lo Green.
[Rico] Cee Lo, Big Gipp.
They call me Big Gipp.
Yes, what's up?
Khujo and T-Mo.
What's up, this is T-Mo.
Goodie representing all the wild childs out there, nothing but the fire.
♪ Uh, pow ♪
♪ Who's that peeking in my window ♪
We wanted to be totally different from Outkast.
[interviewer] What was the vision for Goodie Mob?
We wanted to be more edgy, a little more edgier than Outkast was.
A little bit edgier than that was.
And God bless the first single, "Cell Therapy,"
just ended up being a hip-hop classic.
♪ Me and my family moved In our apartment complex ♪
♪ A gate with the serial code Was put up next ♪
♪ They claim that this community Is so drug free ♪
♪ But it don't look that way to me ♪
It was original,
it was eccentric and it was also politically charged.
[Khujo] We was like those ghetto politicians
in the neighborhood, and our thing was straight focusing on
just really representing what was going on
in Atlanta at that time,
through the perspective of the youth.
♪ Listen up little nigga I'm talking to you ♪
♪ About what yo little ass Need to be going through ♪
[Khujo] I don't even think LaFace even knew what they had at that time, man.
They didn't know how politically incorrect we were.
They were like, "That's a catchy hook."
"That's a crazy hook, man. Hold on now, what?"
♪ Concentration camps Laced with gas pipelines ♪
♪ Infernos outdoors like they had back When Adolf Hitler was living in 1945 ♪
♪ Listen to me now, believe me later on ♪
[Big Boi] Social commentary was in the forefront of what they did.
Outkast, we was real slick. Player.
Super cool.
Goodie Mob was like in your face. You know what I mean? Like...
motherfucker, you know what I'm saying?
-[thudding on door] -[man] Who is it?
And way ahead of its time.
They was talking about stuff that's going on right now.
-[boom] -This is the Red Dog police department.
[police shouting] Just get on the ground. Get your head on the ground.
♪ One to da two da three da four ♪
♪ Dem dirty Red Dogs done hit the door ♪
♪ And they got everybody On they hands and knees ♪
♪ And they ain't gonna leave Until they find them keys ♪
♪ Now if dirty Bill Clinton Fronted me some weight ♪
♪ Told me to keep two Bring him back eight ♪
[Maurice] Dirty South plays it out so clearly.
What we're talking about here is the militarization of the police,
and the creation of the Red Dog Police.
But what we're also talking about here
is Bill Clinton's three strike rule,
on a national level, 1994.
When this bill is law, three strikes and you're out
will be the law of the land.
And it will be used to build prisons
to keep 100.000 violent criminals off the street.
This overwhelmingly incarcerated black men and increased the federal prisons
by 800%.
We're still eviscerated by crack cocaine,
and the transition of a trillion dollars that was supposed to go to education
that went to a war on drugs, and created the school to prison pipeline.
They're really giving you that underbelly.
That counter-narrative to Atlanta as the black mecca.
♪ See in the 3rd grade This is what you told ♪
♪You was bought, you was sold ♪
Goodie Mob has gospel that demands a certain reverence.
They are militant mind stated almost, they're fiercely black, fiercely Southern.
♪ What you really know About the dirty South ♪
♪ What you really know About the dirty South ♪
"What you really know about the dirty South?"
That says it all, right there.
It just meant, you know, it was dirty. Gritty.
Like, our soil is like red clay.
So, that shit is hard to get off your shoes.
Once you get it on you, you can't get it off.
So, once you are touched by this,
it's going to go with you wherever you go.
♪ When I'm too sober, year older Now I'm almost legal ♪
♪ Wanted to live the life of Cadillacs, Impalas and Regals ♪
♪ Fucking around with the hoes Busting nets in their mouth ♪
♪ Kickin' that same southern slang Lookin' for love off in yo' jaw ho ♪
It gave us an identity.
You were grimy if you were in New York. You were gangster if you were West Coast.
But the dirty South was mad.
It was hot, sticky, you know [laughing] what I mean?
The filthy, nasty, dirty South.
Yeah, you've got to understand, we're the South.
We're, you know, we are the Carolinas, we're Florida,
we're Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, we're Texas, like--
we never thought we were uncool, we just thought...
y'all was tripping.
[chuckling] You know what I mean?
♪ What you niggas know About the Dirty South ♪
♪ Yeah, the Dirty South ♪
[narrator] In the decade between Shy D and The Dungeon Family,
Atlanta's hip-hop had grown from shake music
to slick metaphors.
And in the meantime, the city had built an industry,
and an identity.
This was just the beginning for the South as a whole.
Because now it was more than a collection of states.
It was the dirty South.
And unified by this new identity, the south was poised
to wrest power from the East and West and become the new center of hip-hop.
[narrator] It's been a long time since I visited the South
but don't get it twisted.
From the moment 2 Live Crew and the Geto Boys hit the airwaves,
the South was doing its thing.
So it makes sense that I come here,
to the birthplace of Martin Luther King,
a key city in the civil rights movement,
a city many people consider America's Black Mecca,
to find out where hip-hop was heading next.
Welcome to Atlanta.
[Killer Mike] For a 100 years, Atlanta has been a place
where, even in the midst of Jim Crowism and segregation,
black people carved a way for themselves.
You have a 51 to 54% black population.
You have African American leadership from a mayoral perspective
for the last 45 years.
Never shall I let you down!
Third most corporations of any city.
The black dollar matters here. Black spirituality matters here.
Black arts matter here.
So, if you are an African American with something to contribute
to the culture and you're in Atlanta,
you have a chance, culturally, of breaking through.
[drum break]
[Speech] People come from a lot of places and move to Atlanta
for that opportunity, for that bigger space.
So you had a lot of people from a lot of different places.
Bringing different musical vibes to the city,
and Atlanta had its own sound, you know what I mean?
But it was sort of an offshoot of what was going on in Miami, bass style.
[crowd cheering]
What was the flavor in Atlanta in the late 80s?
Uh, there was a relationship between Atlanta and Miami at that time.
What was translated as a skating rink music,
or as booty shake music, Miami bass.
That's what the music was called.
In Atlanta, it was just called the straight bass.
It had no identity.
[frenetic beats]
[narrator] With Miami bass rattling woofers and skating rinks,
Atlanta was still looking outwards for its hip-hop.
So it's no surprise that the city's first recognized MC
wouldn't come from the ATL either.
Instead it would be an Adidas rocking b-boy from the south Bronx
who would lay down the first seeds of hip hop in the ATL.
♪ Come on! Shake it! Come on, shake it! ♪
♪ Come on, shake it! Come on! ♪
♪ Come on, shake it! Come on, shake it! ♪
-Yes, sir. -What's up?
-You good? -Everything good, man.
Um, so tell me like, you know, your family came from the Bronx.
-Yeah. -Uh...
Uh, why did your family want to come to Atlanta?
Basically, you know, Mom and Dad,
wanted us to have a better life, you know what I'm saying? So...
I guess my dad saw the potential,
so he was like, "I've got to get there before it start blowing up."
You know what I'm saying?
-It has blown up since then. -Yeah, major city. Major.
[percussive beats]
[interviewer] What did people think of hip-hop initially here?
Because you're coming from the Bronx,
and were you trying to introduce people to hip-hop and...
Oh yeah, believe it or not, me and my brother,
we had a little Community Center in the neighborhood we lived in.
Uh, yeah.
And my brother, he was like the DJ.
So when he's DJing, I'm on the floor breakdancing, you know what I'm saying?
They really didn't understand it.
They was like, "These people come from New York.
What are they doing?"
Little man spinning on the floor,
my man DJing with two turntables, so it was really different.
So we really introduced hip-hop to them down here.
When I got through with the break dancing and stuff,
I used to DJ at parties.
And whenever I would throw on The Egyptian Lover records,
and the Pretty Tony songs from California and Miami,
people packed the dance floor, but when I throw on Doug E Fresh,
or something from New York, everybody go sit down.
So I got smarter.
I said if I get a chance to make a record, I'll make an up-tempo record.
[man] We was working on the Comin' Correct album,
and while we was working on that particular album,
I noticed songs with repetitive hooks
were starting to be more popular.
And I was like, Salt'N'Pepa got "Push It,"
we need to come up with something very repetitive."
And, at the last minute, I was like, "Let's do Shake it."
And Shy D wrote the record, me and Mike Fresh put the beat together.
And next thing you know, we've got a hit record, man!
♪ One night I was cooling Sitting in the tub ♪
♪ And I wanted to go out And go to a club ♪
♪ So I got out the tub And put my sneakers on ♪
♪ Yo, that's what you did, D ♪
♪ Homeboy, word, it's on ♪
[MC Shy D] I came with the New York sound, voice wise.
The South and California, beat wise.
And I just put it together, and I made a good recipe.
♪ Jumped in the Cadillac Went and got TP ♪
♪ And drove downtown And picked up LT ♪
We used to call it shake dancing before it was called twerking.
And then, that started the stripping thing in the strip capital.
So Atlanta was the shake dance capital.
It just took Atlanta by storm, man, like...
you know, the visuals he had for the videos,
and the way the girls would dance to the music in the club.
It was just crazy.
♪ I say get out there And let me see you ♪
♪ Shake it, come on, shake it Come on, come on, shake it ♪
It was like Run-DMC had a son
and sent him down south to live with his mama.
You know what I mean. [chuckling]
He had the b-boy stance, the way he rocked his hat.
Everything about Shy D was New York.
♪ And let me see you shake it! ♪
What kind of response did you get from people in Atlanta about that song?
Believe it or not, I'm going to be honest with you...
-Atlanta wouldn't really support me, -Wow.
because they knew I was from New York.
I don't got that Atlanta slang, you know?
People still hear the New York in me, you know what I am saying?
So I didn't really get the love here.
Kilo got the love.
Kilo was the first to do that.
[Synthesizer riff]
[narrator] The Bronx bred Shy D may have been the first b-boy in Atlanta.
Everybody down! Now! Now! Now!
[officer] Get the car! The car! The trunk!
[narrator] That wasn't enough for the ATL.
The city needed someone who could speak to their reality.
And they'd find that in a nasal voiced MC
hailing from the city's tough Bankhead neighborhood.
♪ There's a white girl in town ♪
♪ Name is cocaine ♪
♪ Get inside your brain ♪
♪ Play you like a lame ♪
[Kilo] Bankhead was a fearsome side of town.
They used to get cut throats, really...
Like, blade cuts at liquor store type of stuff,
back in those days, I remember, but...
uh, it was where I went wild.
♪ Cocaine Cocaine ♪
[reporter] Bankhead Courts is afflicted with drugs and violence.
[woman] It's hell. You can't even come out in the evening time.
You're scared you might get shot!
-[crowd screaming] -[gunshots]
[Kilo] It was a drug war. Crack was new.
And Zell Miller was our governor then,
and he designed this crew called the Red Dog Task Force Squad.
[officer] Show me your hands! On your knees!
[reporter] The name comes from a tactical maneuver in football.
An all-out assault against the quarterback.
[officer] We're going to kill you, you want to stop!
You want to stop! Reach and you're dead.
[Kilo] What was happening with rap music everywhere,
not only in Atlanta, was laundering.
And I was...
basically a launderer at that point in time,
for like posses or gangs.
We had a gang back then called Strictly Business Posse.
So they produced me.
When I came out with my song "Cocaine,"
I had done juvenile time.
So, I wrote it downtown, on the floor, in the juvenile cell.
"There's a white girl in town,
her name is cocaine."
♪ Get inside your brain ♪
♪ Play you like a lame ♪
♪ Yeah, you on her good side ♪
♪'Cause she make you rich ♪
♪ The first time you hit her ♪
♪ Break you like a brick ♪
[Kilo] I made a song based off somebody's surroundings.
You see from the window, your uncle sells it,
your mom does it. You know what I'm saying?
You get shoes from it.
And so, it got your attention.
♪That's what you get ♪
♪ For selling that crack cocaine ♪
At that time, dope boys was
paid in Atlanta.
Driving all kinds of cars. They were like spaceships back then.
Rims.
Like, what's going on with him? What are you doing?
Kilo is rapping about it.
So he-- he struck a chord.
[muffled police radio]
[Killer MIke] When "Cocaine" dropped, it perfectly described the voice
directly from the trap.
In a way that only a kid growing up in boy homes
could describe the world falling apart around him.
With dopeness, harmony, melody.
He was...
visceral with the cuts, with the shit that he was saying.
♪ Make you a big man ♪
♪ Buy you a Uzi ♪
♪ She say go kill your brother Or you gonna lose me ♪
It was actually a drug awareness song when I wrote it,
but a lot of people missed the message
because they was having so much fun with the word "cocaine."
"Cocaine says she loves you, but she really don't."
♪ She says "I'll always be there" But she really won't ♪
[Kilo] People went wild.
We did $60,000 out the trunk.
-Crazy. -Yeah.
But I got signed from that one idea.
And then, when I came out with my record, I was like 15 years old.
[Kawan] Kilo was coming straight off of the base space.
So he was coming off of Shy D.
And his music was still fast.
You know, "Cocaine" was still 120, 130, somewhere in that space.
But he was the first person we heard who was from Atlanta
that was like young like us. Like, he felt like us talking.
So he was the first Atlanta rapper, but radio wasn't really playing his music.
We didn't have enough hip-hop.
Honestly. To even have that much space on the radio.
[narrator] While the ATL pioneers were steadily developing their own style,
there was still no major infrastructure to support the city's young hip-hop scene.
But ready to fill the void for Atlanta's DJs and MCs
was a dapper entrepreneur with a flamboyant pitch.
Hey, hi, hello!
I'm that cool fly fellow.
King Edward J, I say!
[rolls r] Rocking Atlanta GA.
Making Decatur sound much greater.
Ha, ha! Yep!
♪ Go, go, go Go, go, go ♪
[King] The good thing about Atlanta was it was hungry for a change.
The music scene in Atlanta
wasn't getting the respect that it should've gotten.
We had one radio station
that would play rap music for one hour
on Friday night.
And they would play all the music from East Coast and West Coast,
but they wouldn't play the music from right home.
And so I decided to open a business of my own.
The J Shop.
And here we are, ladies and gentlemen,
at King Edward J Records and Tapes.
This is little Yakimi, she's the youngest member of J team.
It's me, Edward J, I say.
Rocking Atlanta GA!
We were a mini record company.
First, it was just mainly
selling records and tapes.
[dirty laughing]
After a while, we began to make beats and rap to the beats.
-Now getting into production. -Yes, getting into production.
And other DJs who wanted to prove
how good they were would come to the J team.
People like Raheem the Dream. DJ Smurf. Shy D.
Of course, Shy D was doing something on his own,
but he came aboard the J Team as a DJ.
Once he put you on that mixtape, you was going to blow up.
I mean, you could be a Joe Blow,
but if he put you on one of his mixtapes, your name was going to get out there.
And, I mean, it was incredible.
This man was selling tapes for like $15,
13.75 or something. I mean, you know.
That's an album!
He was selling cassette tapes for that.
We would get a nifty $13.50,
for a 90-minute rock with the J Team.
Right here, my dear, make that perfectly clear.
[DJ Jelly] You know, the mixtape scene was the radio,
so we were doing something similar to how New York was doing
with their tapes of freestyles.
So we basically sling the tapes through all the neighborhoods.
He was the ear to the streets.
So, everything that was coming out underground,
it was on the J Tape first.
If it were not for Edward J,
I don't know that there would be a hip-hop scene
in the way that it is now.
What they were doing for the music scene in Atlanta
was the music scene.
[narrator] King Edward J and the J Team amplified Atlanta's hip-hop scene.
But it was still a long way from getting love outside the 404.
But that was about to change.
Recognizing the fresh talent pool in the city
and attracted by its history as a Black Mecca,
a polished R&B duo will come from Los Angeles to set up shop.
[Ian] Atlanta was bubbling, but not to the point where we were ready to break.
We had our artists that were making noise,
but we were just a regional... city.
You know, we-- we hadn't done anything that broke...
-Nationally. -Okay.
And accepted nationally.
So, when LaFace came to Atlanta,
they had Arista behind them, Clive Davis.
And it was just something that Atlanta hadn't seen before.
LaFace records was the first major record company, if you will,
to descend upon ATL.
You know, once LA and Babyface decided to come to Atlanta,
I think it was right around 89, you know, it was a huge buzz in the city.
And I think, more than anything, LA and Babyface wanted to come here to see
what Atlanta was from an authentic standpoint.
I believe they struggled for a bit.
You know, they were still signing 80s type bands with processed hair.
They started to get more connected here in Atlanta
when they connected with the Atlanta producers
like Dallas Austin.
When they started tapping into...
our natural resources here
is when things started to make a turn for them.
When you come here, there's a lot of new people doing things new ways.
People who haven’t been in the industry for long, which is very good.
They were figuring out what to do to start their label off.
I was making records.
I was kind of the first one... kind of doing music in the new sense.
I made it first with Another Bad Creation, which was the one that started to
kind of rattle stuff around here.
LaFace was one of the first ones to come and say, "Look at all of this gold."
Somebody needs to put the thing here and give them an outlet out of here.
Dallas Austin,
he was the shit around here because he was the one producer.
And I'm like, "Oh, he is doing it."
So everybody was looking up to Dallas.
And when LA and Babyface moved to Atlanta,
I was working at a hair salon.
And the woman I worked for, she was actually doing Pebbles' hair.
And Pebbles was married to LA Reed, and...
I was like, "You need to go tell Pebbles I'm the bomb.
She needs to holler at me."
I didn't think she was going to do it, but Pebbles called me at home that night.
[ad libbing]
It was Chili, me and Lisa,
and we were calling ourselves TLC.
It wasn't really girly,
but it had so much hip-hop elements.
Lisa, she came in like a little feisty rapper,
so she brought the hip-hop elements.
♪ Or can it be I'm a little too friendly ♪
♪ So to speak, hypothetically ♪
♪ Say I supply creativity ♪
♪ To what others must take As a form of self-hate ♪
When we did get to LA Reed,
he was like, "Who do you want to work with?"
Only person I kept saying is Dallas Austin, Dallas Austin,
he has to be our producer.
And he got it.
♪ Every now and then I get a little crazy ♪
♪ That's not the way it's supposed to be ♪
TLC came from out of nowhere
and just wiped the floor with everything. Dallas Austin put his foot in that.
Back then, I know that he was heavily influenced
by the New Jack Swing sound.
But Dallas took it and made his own distinctive sound.
The music still was dripping with hip-hop.
Not necessarily Southern hip-hop, but with hip-hop.
♪ What about your friends ♪
At the same time that Dallas Austin was having major success with LaFace,
another young producer with a keen eye for talent and deep roots
in hip-hop was making a name for himself.
[synthesizer beats]
Thanks for doing this. We appreciate it.
-All right! Come on. -Cool.
[Jermaine] I started as a dancer,
dancing around the city of Atlanta.
I was just opening up a bunch of different shows like for Cameo and...
um... groups Brick and SO--
groups that was around the city doing what they do.
And bigger concerts that would come to the city.
♪ And I always had to be home by ten ♪
♪ Right before the fun Was about to begin ♪
[Jermaine] My father tried to figure out a way for me to open up these shows.
And the Fresh Fest came to Atlanta,
it was like the only place to be at
if you was into hip-hop at that particular point in time.
♪ The freaks come out at night ♪
♪ The freaks come out at night ♪
We figured out how to get me to be the opening act.
And that was my birth into hip-hop and music, period.
This is Jermaine!
[voices talking over each other]
[man] Open up man, open up!
-See rapping has been very, very good... -[all] to me!
What were you learning from other artists on that tour, when you were on the road?
I was learning hip-hop. You know? I was just learning about hip-hop.
And something about me said that I could produce.
I don't know what it was,
but something told me I could write for other people.
And I could put out my own artists.
One time, I went to the mall...
and...
these guys walking around the mall, these two kids.
And I was like...
I'm watching the reaction of...
the people at the mall to these kids.
I'm like, "Look how they acting at the cookie company."
The girls in the back, serving,
acting like they seen them on TV or something.
Screaming and like: "Oh, girl!"
And giving them free shit, all this. And I'm like, "What is this?"
I just walked up to them like, ”Yo who are you all?"
He's like, "What you mean?"
"What you all do?"
"We don't do nothing, we just kick it." I'm like...
"Y'all just kick it?"
Immediately. my mind was just like, “Oh, God.
These guys need a record out right now."
Yo, what’s up, it’s the Daddy Mac.
And you know it’s the Mac Daddy and we Kris Kross.
When I met Kris Kross, they weren't really jumping to do it.
These kids didn't even know that this could possibly happen.
So, when they met me,
I just started asking them questions about rapping, like, "You all rap
the way I see ya'll rapping other people's records,
we can make our own song."
So we went to the studio
and made "Jump."
♪ Jump, jump Daddy Mac will make you jump, jump ♪
Kris Kross represented something that I had never seen before.
The coolness of being a rapper and the attitude of getting girls
and all that was already in their head.
-So... -It's crazy.
For them to get a hit record, it was like, "This ain't nothing."
I was at my grandmother's house and I saw Kris Kross on TV,
and I was like, "Oh my God! I want to be with them!
That's who I feel like I need to be with."
You know?
They had their clothes backwards, jumping all around.
And J created them, you know?
He said, "Turn your pants inside out and do this, do that."
And they did it and they followed his lead and look at the success that they had.
Everybody was jumping.
[Kawan] They on tour with Michael Jackson?
Some Atlanta niggas is on tour with Michael Jackson? That's crazy.
[reporter] Call it rap, call it hip-hop. Whatever you call it,
in the case of Kriss Kross, call it successful.
Kriss Kross is not only shaking up the music world,
they've also managed to spark fashion craze.
I was in college at Alabama A&M
and they had grown-ass men wearing their pants backwards.
So, if you want to know the impact of "Jump,"
that was the motherfucking impact of "Jump."
Much appreciated, thank you. Looks all right, what do you think?
-A little bit bigger. -A little bit bigger, thank you.
Kriss Kross, we didn't really consider it hip-hop.
There was a void that was there.
And that's not to insult it, you know what I mean?
Because the success is not debatable.
It was the popular sound that Jermaine did,
in a way that he always deserves his credit and his respect for that.
Jermaine gave us a group out of the stratosphere,
but that was still a group based on the sound outside of Atlanta.
You know, they weren't the grimy hip-hop, but...
you have to give credit to Kriss Kross for opening up the national stage
and international stage for Atlanta.
1992 was the first year that we noticed
that this is working because Kriss Kross was popping,
TLC had got signed and they had a record out,
it was starting to blow.
Then you had Arrested Development who,
we had friends in that group as well, it's like, this year,
I got three people who I know who was on Arsenio.
Like, I taped Arsenio three times for some people I know.
[Rodney] When we look back on that era,
we see how the industry was able to come in
and take a lot of raw talent,
shape it and mold it.
But in terms of getting to the root of Atlanta culture,
that hadn't quite happened yet.
Organized Noize, to me, is the first ones to present to us
the sound of Atlanta.
They had decided, "We want some lyrics.
We want some hip-hop cats."
[mellow guitar groove]
[narrator] From the pioneering bounce of Shy D and Kilo Ali,
to the crossover success of TLC and Kris Kross,
Atlanta's hip-hop scene was growing fast.
To many, though,
the city's real soul and sound have yet to be tapped.
But in a basement in Southeast Atlanta, a trio of producers,
Rico Wade, Sleepy Brown and Ray Murray,
were working hard on bringing all the pieces together.
The three friends went by the name of Organized Noize.
And, lucky for us,
someone at LaFace Records found out about them.
What's up, gentlemen?
-Hey, what's up? -What's up, man?
Thank you for this, much appreciated.
[interviewer] So, tell me how you guys hooked up with LaFace Records.
We were real good friends with Tionne-- T-Boz. [chuckles]
And that's when LaFace first came here, and she ended up getting a deal
with Pebbles because she was doing Pebble's hair.
So, the same thing kind of happened for us.
She introduced us to Pebbles and we went um...
I'll never forget, we had the interview with her.
[elevator ping]
And she comes out of the elevator, it was like she was walking slow,
was gorgeous.
She walks in the room,
we all sitting there with our mouths open like...
It was cool. She was really nice, man.
She listened to us and every time a beat played,
she asked who did the beat and everybody would point at me.
Who played the bass line? Point at me.
She said, "Okay, let me introduce you to LA."
So, they held a little meeting.
It was really the start for us, you know.
Pebbles said the production was dope.
Yes, Pebbles liked the production.
Pebbles loved to even meet--
Pebbles in audition to get call backs, it was like,
"We're going to make it! We can make beats!"
So, that's where it was like, now we find a rap group.
We need people who really can rap.
I don't need nobody that I got to write no raps for.
I need some MCs.
[gong strike]
I was working at Lamonte's Beauty Supply in East Point,
Headland and Delowe.
A girl that worked there,
she told me that two guys from her school
wanted to come over there, basically come rap or whatever.
I guess they caught the bus to the plaza.
When these kids came, they might have been 16, 15.
They had on cut-off shorts with thermals.
-Country niggas. -Yeah!
They were fly, man!
I remember standing in the parking lot, letting them niggas rap,
and thinking like, "Yeah,
this is that. This is it. This is it.
I found some MCs. This is it."
School is now in session.
♪ Time and time again See I be thinking about that future ♪
♪ Back in the day when we were slaves I bet we was some cool ass niggas ♪
♪ But now we vultures Slam my nigga back out ♪
-How are you doing? -All right.
-Big fan. -Cool, thanks.
How's your day going?
Uh... Super fantastic.
♪ See now in the ghetto Or should I be saying Lakewood ♪
♪ You better be strapped cause them niggas just ain't good ♪
[interviewer] So first of all, let's talk about you two auditioning.
How serious were you guys at that time?
Was that just kind of a hobby or were you like,
"No, this is dead serious. We need to make this."
No, we was dead ass serious, you know?
We always...
were MCs first, so we took pride in it.
It was lyricism, you know?
Before us, you had Raheem the Dream.
Shy D. Me and Dre used to listen to Kilo Ali.
We used to be in high school bumping that shit.
Like, the production was crazy.
So, you know to come behind that, like, we were just straight busting.
♪ Just being a hustler Serving on all your customers ♪
♪ Rent was due on the 1st of the month So I'm hustling ♪
That day, we just kept trading our bars back and forth.
And it was maybe eight minutes long.
They rapped for about 30 minutes a piece,
And I was like, "Damn, are they ever going to stop?"
Jesus Christ!
♪ I’ve been slipping, slowly but surely ♪
♪ Niggas I used to hang with Wants to act like they don't know me ♪
♪ Come and listen to my story ♪
Man, these boys...
were so metaphoric.
It was so metaphoric. They had all the punchlines.
I'm rolling reefer out of a Regal, how can I refrain?
That drove Rico nuts when he said that.
♪ I'm rolling reefer out of a Regal, How can I refrain ♪
[voices] Ohhh!
We was over there like,
"Goddamn! Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!" We was fucking them up.
They was just hip-hopped out.
They was phrased out.
To find these guys from the South and to be Southern,
and have those kinds of skills, that skill set,
and to be young!
This is the putty that we need, per se,
no disrespect to their creativity and their talent, but
it's the putty we need to play with.
They was like, "You're coming with us to The Dungeon."
It was like, "All right." So that was our initiation.
All right, check this out, we're at The Dungeon.
Rico Wade house, you know what I'm saying? Where we do all the stuff, you know?
You all know Big Boi.
[men] Ohhh!
Wait a minute, I've been hearing a lot about The Dungeon,
where all your beats get made.
I heard it's real funky in there. Let's go and get some of that flavor.
Goodie good, I’m with that.
♪ Well, it's the M-I-crooked letter Coming around the South ♪
♪ Rolling straight Hammers and Vogues In that old Southern slouch ♪
Now, we, like, down here in The Dungeon, right?
-You know? -Ain't no thing but a chicken wing.
How did you guys end up in The Dungeon? Tell me about that.
The actual dungeon with the dirt basement floors.
It was my mom's basement that we would run wires down to.
So, we took the little equipment we did have
and we was there working on beats.
From the time you walk in that area, you open that door,
it's a lot of graffiti. People were tagging.
♪ Who raise yo' block? The one and only OutKast ♪
♪ Many a nigga falling fast And I continue blasting, swiftly ♪
It wasn't even really a basement, it was a crawl space.
Really muddy, no real walls, no real structure just a few poles.
And that's where our whole crew-- that's where we all hung out at.
[Big Boi] Sofas, those raggedy cushions out of it,
nails coming out of that motherfucker.
Nobody had a job.
Everybody had sleeping bags.
It was like a big slumber party, seven days a week.
It was almost like camp, you know what I mean?
You didn't have to worry about your mama messing with you,
you didn't have to worry about no chores.
So, when it says Dungeon Family,
we definitely are a family, man,
because we spent time together.
Nobody's going home.
Everybody's rapping and writing all day long.
They may step outside and play football for a minute,
may have a little smoke break.
[T-Boz] I don't smoke or drink,
and that's all they was doing.
I don't got time to be in there with all these drunk people
and all this weed.
♪ We're gonna get high ♪
A lot a lot a lot a lot a lot of weed.
♪ High ♪
♪ High ♪
A lot a lot of weed.
Just a lot of weed.
This was the gold era of hip-hop with Philly blunts,
you see the little Philly joints all over the floor.
But, you know, we was all ready to be
selfless, meant to support
Outkast, make sure they succeed, that's what's important.
That's what's imperative. That's what's first and foremost.
It was like a collaborative effort of the whole squad.
It was everybody's baby because we were all one crew,
and this was our first shot.
We're just trying to put Atlanta out there,
and let people know Atlanta is here
and they got some real players in this game down here, you know?
Our Southern music different than everybody else,
because we've been here for so long.
It's different, we got something to say.
We tell about our real lives, you know? Like that.
[wholesome 50s music]
[Christmas bell music]
LA calls, we're doing a Christmas album. A LaFace Christmas album.
Everybody got to turn a Christmas song in.
What were you thinking at that point?
Fuck!
A Christmas song?
Man, they trying to fuck our career before it even gets started.
It's hip-hop!
This is hip-hop. Finna sell us out.
Come on, we're for the-- come on. Even though,
I knew about Run DMC.
I knew about Kurtis Blow.
So I knew it had worked before.
So, in my mind I say, "I've got to go sell this shit."
Was like, "I know what we'll do.
We just goddamn do a song about what we do on Christmas.
Like, we ain't had a Christmas tree. We was in The Dungeon.
So we just rapped about what we did on Christmas.
And it turned out to be Player’s Ball.
♪ It's beginning to look a lot like, what? Follow my every step ♪
♪ Take notes on how I crept I's bout to go in depth ♪
♪ This is the way I creep my season, Here's my ghetto rep ♪
♪ I kept, to say the least No, no it can't cease ♪
[Maurice] They talk about this Players Ball,
which had always been legend and lore
in Atlanta's black hustlers’ community.
-It always took place-- -On Christmas Day.
♪ All the players came From far and wide ♪
[Ian] It was almost like an anti Christmas song, to be honest.
-Yes. -You know what I am saying?
It's not a holiday for us. It's another day at work.
We've still got to get out of here, we've got to hustle. We've got to survive.
♪ When the Player’s Ball is happening All day ery'day ♪
Ain't no Chimneys in the ghetto, I won't be hanging my socks on chimneys.
♪ Ain't no chimneys in the ghetto ♪
♪ So I won't be hanging my socks On no chimney ♪
♪ I'm fit as a tick, fix me a plate I got the remedy ♪
♪ Some greens and that ham, not Don't need no ham ♪
♪ Hocks don't play me like I'm smoking rocks ♪
♪ I got the munchies ♪
Oh my God! They were so dope, you know?
It was a sound that you hadn't heard before.
And they were so different, but they were so dope together.
♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪
Big Boi, he likes to party. He liked the cars, you know, the girls.
♪ 'Cause I'm a player Doing what the players do ♪
[Khujo] Big Boi is a wordsmith.
He can make words
rhyme that don't rhyme.
♪ I’m gettin curious 'cause the house
♪ Smelling stank of chitlins Old as bitches ♪
♪ I make no wishes 'Cause the mobbing folk ♪
♪ Niggas in the back getting tipsy ♪
♪ Off the nog and high as hell Off the contact smoke ♪
And Dre was always a little bit more the eclectic one.
♪ So tell me what did you expect? ♪
♪ You thought I'd break my neck ♪
♪ To help y'all deck the-- Oh now ♪
[Mr. DJ] Dre is the philosopher, he makes you think.
Even some of his verses, to this day,
I'm just now getting.
Andre 3000 can rhyme
a 32-bar rhyme,
and you'll be on the edge of your seat from bar one to bar 32.
♪ It goes give me ten And I'll serve you then now we bend ♪
♪ The corner in my Cadillac My heart does not go pittypat for no rat ♪
♪ I'm leaning back My elbows out the window ♪
♪ Coke, rum, indo fills my body Where's the party ♪
♪ We roll deep we dip to underground See a lot of hoes around ♪
♪ I spit my game while waiting countdown ♪
♪ A five fo’, a three two Here comes the one ♪
♪ A new year has begun P-Funk spark another one ♪
♪ All the players came from far and wide ♪
[Rico] Player's Ball came on.
It was, "Oh shit. It's on the radio!"
And I just remember I liked it.
Like, aw man,
didn't know that
it really was going to take off.
The song, and you know, debuts on the album.
It begins to move up the charts, so...
LA Reid tells Rico,
"All right. This song is moving.
You have to get your boys to do a whole album."
♪ Get up, stand up So what's said, you dickhead? ♪
♪ See when I was a youngster Used to wear them fuckin' Pro Keds ♪
♪ My mama made me do it But the devil, he made me smart ♪
[Big Boi] It was a long process.
Southernplayalistic, we worked on that shit for a long time.
And for months, Organized Noize was making beats
while we was laying vocals and...
Cee Lo would come through, or Gipp would come through
and it was all hands on deck.
♪ I don’t recall ever graduating at all ♪
♪ Sometimes I feel I'm just a disappointment to y'all ♪
♪ Every day, I just lay around Then I can't be found ♪
♪ Always asking "gimme some" Living life like a bum ♪
[Cee Lo] Git up, Git out" was my first verse
and it was such a humble moment for everybody.
Everybody was just so proud to be a part of something
that we knew was real. We felt it in our bones.
And we were just introducing
who we were and where we were from for the first time.
♪ I write the deep ass rhymes ♪
♪ So, let me take ya away ♪
♪ Back to when a nigga stayed In Southwest Atlanta, ay ♪
[Killer Mike] Organized Noize, Outkast and The Dungeon Family gave us a sound.
They look like us, walk like us, talk like us.
Are into Cadillacs and Chevrolets,
or walk around in flip flops and socks, just like us.
[Da Brat] Southernplayalistic.
You know? Is what you played in your Cadillac.
It was collard greens and cornbread and fish and grits.
You know what I'm saying? It just--
-You could feel that. -You could feel that.
You could feel the Southern in it.
♪ You need to git up, git out And git something ♪
♪ How will you make it If you never even try ♪
♪ You need to git up, git out And git something ♪
♪ 'Cause you and I Got to do for you and I ♪
[Big Boi] We was proud to be from Atlanta.
We was putting our city on the map and we wanted to let you know
exactly where we was from.
Whether it was East Point, College Park, Decatur, The Swats,
like, we embodied all that, and we repped the whole city.
What do you remember hearing from radio programmers in New York?
"They country."
"We ain't playing that country shit."
"Whatever."
"I got nothing against the guys, but you know, I can't really relate."
And I was like, "We're country? Like, that's all you've got to say?"
You're not really taking the time to listen what they're talking about.
[police siren]
When we were at the Source Awards
it was very New York! New York was heavy.
Brooklyn!
What up?
That particular Source Awards was, like, so historic.
You have the East Coast-West Coast beef going on.
The East Coast don't love Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg?
[booing]
[Cee Lo] The tension in the room was so thick,
you could cut it with a knife.
These motherfuckers they came to fight!
So, we just kind of looking, kind of naively, back and forth, like,
"East-West. East-West"
It was myself, Big Boi, Dre
and we don't want any parts of the beef.
You know, we're just happy to be here.
All right! Hold up!
And the winner is...
-Outkast! -Outkast!
When they announced that Outkast won,
I was almost in a complete state of shock.
I was like, "Holy crap!
We did it! We won!"
[interviewer] When you guys got Best New Artist,
what did it feel like just to be there as a southern act?
How did that feel?
It was dope to be recognized, you know.
That was like one of the top honors.
Just like the hip-hop mecca, you know? Madison Square Garden.
Just a boy from East Point. It was just like, "Whoa. Whoa."
[booing]
And then they booed us when we won, it was like...
That's fucked up. You know?
Yeah!
Word.
What's up?
Goodie Mob in the house! We want to say, what's up in New York?
'Cause we from down South!
It's New York up in this, you know? And you all live here.
This is y'all city.
They were trying to be all diplomatic,
and like, "We know this your city."
Trying to pay homage, if you will.
But then he does something that's very-- it's a very southern sensibility.
He looks at Andre and he's like, "So what's up?"
Which means, he wants you to talk your shit. [laughing]
"So what's up, Dre?"
Yeah, first of all, you know?
We want to thank God. Just, saying dead serious,
because if it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be here.
But it's like this, though.
I'm tired of folks, you know what I'm saying?
The close-minded folks, you know?
We've got a demo tape and nobody want to hear it,
but the South got something to say, that's all I got to say.
[Da Brat] Andre was very emotional.
And...
if you didn't believe anything that they've ever said,
you knew he meant that.
Did that kind of put the battery in your back a little bit?
The battery was already there,
they just put the jumper cables on that motherfucker.
Because what they did was step in the ant bed.
It just made us, you know, strive to be better
than we already were, which was like [whistles].
You know what I mean?
It's like, you know...
we're going to show you all motherfuckers, you know what I am saying?
[edgy piano chords]
[narrator] Outkast's win at The Source Awards
taught The Dungeon family two things:
that they were amongst the best in hip-hop,
and that the South was far from being understood.
But their next crew would clear up any misunderstandings
about what the South stood for
and what they stood against.
♪ When the scene unfolds ♪
♪ Young girls thirteen years old ♪
♪ Expose themselves To any Tom, Dick, and Hank ♪
♪ Got more stretch marks than these hoes Hollin’ they got rank ♪
Tell me about how Goodie Mob kind of came together.
After the success of Outkast,
it was real, you know what I mean?
Everybody has their own individual aspirations
and appointed places.
So we needed something where we could all be introduced
as a unit, and...
it was the humility - you know, and the practicality of Rico Wade
that brought the Goodie Mob together.
♪ Who's that peeking in my window Pow, nobody now ♪
♪ Who's that peeking in my window, pow! ♪
[Rico] We got a chance to introduce Goodie Mob.
What's up, this is one fourth of the Goodie Mob, Cee Lo Green.
[Rico] Cee Lo, Big Gipp.
They call me Big Gipp.
Yes, what's up?
Khujo and T-Mo.
What's up, this is T-Mo.
Goodie representing all the wild childs out there, nothing but the fire.
♪ Uh, pow ♪
♪ Who's that peeking in my window ♪
We wanted to be totally different from Outkast.
[interviewer] What was the vision for Goodie Mob?
We wanted to be more edgy, a little more edgier than Outkast was.
A little bit edgier than that was.
And God bless the first single, "Cell Therapy,"
just ended up being a hip-hop classic.
♪ Me and my family moved In our apartment complex ♪
♪ A gate with the serial code Was put up next ♪
♪ They claim that this community Is so drug free ♪
♪ But it don't look that way to me ♪
It was original,
it was eccentric and it was also politically charged.
[Khujo] We was like those ghetto politicians
in the neighborhood, and our thing was straight focusing on
just really representing what was going on
in Atlanta at that time,
through the perspective of the youth.
♪ Listen up little nigga I'm talking to you ♪
♪ About what yo little ass Need to be going through ♪
[Khujo] I don't even think LaFace even knew what they had at that time, man.
They didn't know how politically incorrect we were.
They were like, "That's a catchy hook."
"That's a crazy hook, man. Hold on now, what?"
♪ Concentration camps Laced with gas pipelines ♪
♪ Infernos outdoors like they had back When Adolf Hitler was living in 1945 ♪
♪ Listen to me now, believe me later on ♪
[Big Boi] Social commentary was in the forefront of what they did.
Outkast, we was real slick. Player.
Super cool.
Goodie Mob was like in your face. You know what I mean? Like...
motherfucker, you know what I'm saying?
-[thudding on door] -[man] Who is it?
And way ahead of its time.
They was talking about stuff that's going on right now.
-[boom] -This is the Red Dog police department.
[police shouting] Just get on the ground. Get your head on the ground.
♪ One to da two da three da four ♪
♪ Dem dirty Red Dogs done hit the door ♪
♪ And they got everybody On they hands and knees ♪
♪ And they ain't gonna leave Until they find them keys ♪
♪ Now if dirty Bill Clinton Fronted me some weight ♪
♪ Told me to keep two Bring him back eight ♪
[Maurice] Dirty South plays it out so clearly.
What we're talking about here is the militarization of the police,
and the creation of the Red Dog Police.
But what we're also talking about here
is Bill Clinton's three strike rule,
on a national level, 1994.
When this bill is law, three strikes and you're out
will be the law of the land.
And it will be used to build prisons
to keep 100.000 violent criminals off the street.
This overwhelmingly incarcerated black men and increased the federal prisons
by 800%.
We're still eviscerated by crack cocaine,
and the transition of a trillion dollars that was supposed to go to education
that went to a war on drugs, and created the school to prison pipeline.
They're really giving you that underbelly.
That counter-narrative to Atlanta as the black mecca.
♪ See in the 3rd grade This is what you told ♪
♪You was bought, you was sold ♪
Goodie Mob has gospel that demands a certain reverence.
They are militant mind stated almost, they're fiercely black, fiercely Southern.
♪ What you really know About the dirty South ♪
♪ What you really know About the dirty South ♪
"What you really know about the dirty South?"
That says it all, right there.
It just meant, you know, it was dirty. Gritty.
Like, our soil is like red clay.
So, that shit is hard to get off your shoes.
Once you get it on you, you can't get it off.
So, once you are touched by this,
it's going to go with you wherever you go.
♪ When I'm too sober, year older Now I'm almost legal ♪
♪ Wanted to live the life of Cadillacs, Impalas and Regals ♪
♪ Fucking around with the hoes Busting nets in their mouth ♪
♪ Kickin' that same southern slang Lookin' for love off in yo' jaw ho ♪
It gave us an identity.
You were grimy if you were in New York. You were gangster if you were West Coast.
But the dirty South was mad.
It was hot, sticky, you know [laughing] what I mean?
The filthy, nasty, dirty South.
Yeah, you've got to understand, we're the South.
We're, you know, we are the Carolinas, we're Florida,
we're Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, we're Texas, like--
we never thought we were uncool, we just thought...
y'all was tripping.
[chuckling] You know what I mean?
♪ What you niggas know About the Dirty South ♪
♪ Yeah, the Dirty South ♪
[narrator] In the decade between Shy D and The Dungeon Family,
Atlanta's hip-hop had grown from shake music
to slick metaphors.
And in the meantime, the city had built an industry,
and an identity.
This was just the beginning for the South as a whole.
Because now it was more than a collection of states.
It was the dirty South.
And unified by this new identity, the south was poised
to wrest power from the East and West and become the new center of hip-hop.